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LIFE IN HAWAII 



AN AUTOBIOGRAPHIC SKETCH 



OF 



MISSION LIFE AND LABORS 



(1835-1881; 



BY 



THE REV. TITUS COAN 




NZW YORK 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY 

9OO BROADWAY, COR. 20th ST. 



>r*V • 



COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY. 



NEW YORK : 



EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

Printer and Stereotyper, 
ao North William St. 



ROBERT RUTTER, 

Binder, 
116 and it8 East 14th Street. 



2,/</ 



NOTE 

The task of reading the proofs of the following sketches 
has fallen to one whose recollections include more than a 
few of the scenes and events described. It seems to him that 
this record of mission life and labors will appeal to all those 
who have followed the wonderful changes wrought in Hawaii 
during a life time, from the period of " the great awakening " 
until now. The accounts of visits to the Marquesas Islands 
have their own independent interest. Still more, the greatest 
volcano in the world is in Mr. Coan's parish, and other read- 
ers will turn to the chapters on its eruptions for vivid and 
faithful descriptions of the most imposing volcanic phenom- 
ena on record. 

T. M. C. 



PREFACE. 

A PILGRIM of four-score years, standing near the 
margin of the Border Land, essays to give a sketch 
of his life — and why? 

Because many personal and Christian friends have 
long urged it as a duty to my beloved Master to 
leave my testimony behind me of His faithfulness and 
grace. 

To publish my autobiography was far from my 
thoughts. 

It is a difficult, delicate, and dangerous task. One 
does not choose to publish his own follies and sins, 
and surely it is not modest for one to proclaim his 
own goodness. I will, therefore, only say in the 
words of the great Apostle, " Unto me, who am less 
than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that 
I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable 
riches of Christ." 

Let me then ask, if in reading this narrative there 
shall seem to be the weakness of egotism or of vain 
boasting, that the fault may lie at the door of the wri- 
ter, or be pardoned on account of the great difficulty 



iv Preface. 

of relating one's own experiences and observations 
without often repeating the pronoun /. 

On the other hand, if it shall appear that during a 
ministry of almost half a century a blind man has been 
led into the light, a lame man has been helped to 
walk in the Way of Life, a leprous soul has been 
washed in the Fountain opened for sin and unclean- 
ness ; if a heathen has found the true God, and cast 
away his dead idols, if a fierce cannibal has been 
persuaded to cease to eat the flesh of his enemies, 
and taught to trust the Son of Man for pardon, or if 
some who were dead in trespasses and sins have been 
raised to life by the quickening power of the Gospel, 
then let God have all the glory. 

T. C. 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

PAGE 

Parentage, Childhood, and Early Years — Militia Service — Asa- 
hel Nettleton — Three Years in Western New York — Sick- 
ness — Home Again — Auburn Seminary .... I 

II. 

Marriage — Embarkation for Hawaii — Santiago, Callao, and 
Lima in 1835 — Arrival in Honolulu — Passage to Hilo — Our 
New Home — First Labors 17 

III. 

The Field — The People — Hilo District— Crossing the Torrents 
— Perils of a Canoe Voyage — Puna District . . .29 

IV. 

First Tours in Hilo and Puna — The Work of 1837-38 — Sponta- 
neous Church-Building — The Great Awakening — The Vol- 
canic Wave — Pastoral Experiences and Methods — The In- 
gathering .42 

V. 

Mrs. Coan's School for Girls — Common Schools — Medical Work 
— The Sailors' Church — Sunday Work — Visits of Foreign 
Vessels — The U. S. Exploring Expedition . . . .61 

VI. 

Mauna Loa — Kilauea — The Eruption of 1840 — The River of 
Fire — It reaches the Sea at Nanawale — Lava Chimneys — 
Destruction of a Village . 69 



vi Contents. 



VII. 

More Church-Building — Commodore Jones's Visit — Progress 
of Conversions — The Sacraments under new Conditions . 82 



VIII. 

Arrival of Catholic Missionaries — Admiral de Tromelin— Pros- 
elytism — Controversies with the Priests — Arrival of the 
Mormons — The Reformed Catholics — Bishop Staley — Lord 
George Paulet ......... 93 

IX. 

Isolation of the Mission Families — Sufferings on the Inter-Island 
Voyages — Their Dangers — Parting with our Children — 
School Discussions and Festivals — Native Preachers — 
Cheerful Givers— Changes and Improvements . . .110 



X. 

Hawaiian Kings — The Kamehamehas — Lunalilo — Kalakaua, 
the Reigning King The Foreign Church in Hilo — Organi- 
zation of Native Churches under Native Pastors . . . 127 



XL 

Compensations — Social Pleasures — Some of our Guests and 
Visitors 140 



XII. 

Seedling Missions — Hawaii sends out Missionaries— Need of a 
Missionary Packet — The Three " Morning Stars " . .154 



XIII. 

The Marquesas Islands — Early English and French Missions— 
The Hawaiiatts Send a Mission to Them — My Visit in 1S60 
— The Marquesan Tabu System . . . . . .159 



Contents. vii 

XIV. 

Second Visit to the Marquesas — The Paumotu Archipelago — 
Arrival at Uapou — An Escape by Two Fathoms — Nuuhiva — 
Hivaoa — Kekela's Trials — The Propitiatory Canoe — Savage 
Seducers — A Wild Audience ...... 192 

XV. 

Visit to the United States — Salt Lake — Chicago — 'Washington 
City— Brooklyn — Old Killingworth — Changes in the Home- 
stead — Passing Away — Return to Hilo — Death of Mrs. 
Coan . . r ....... 213 

XVI. 

Notes on the Stations — Hawaii — Governor Kuakini — Maui — 
Crater of Hale-a-ka-la — Molokai — The Leper Settlement — 
Oahu — Kauai — The State of the Church . . . 223 

XVII. 

The Hawaiian Character — Its Amiability — Island Hospitality 
— Patience, Docility — Indolence, Lack of Economy, Fickle- 
ness — Want of Independence — Untruthfulness — Decrease of 
the Population .252 

XVIII. 

Kilauea— Changes in the Crater — Attempt to Measure the Heat 
of its Lavas — Phenomena in Times of Great Activity — Vis- 
itors in the Domains of Pele . . . . . . 262 

XIX. 

Eruptions from Mauna Loa — The Eruption of 1843 — A Visit to 
it — Danger on the Mountain — A Perilous Journey and a Nar- 
row Escape 270 

XX. 

Eruptions of Mauna Loa — The Eruption of 1852 — The Fire- 
Fountain — A Visit to it — Alone on the Mountain — Sights on 
Mauna Loa .......... 279 



viii Contents. 

XXI. 

The Eruption of 1855 — A Climb to the Source — Mountain Hard- 
ships — Visits to Lower Parts of the Lava Stream — Hilo 
threatened with Destruction — Liquidity of the Hawaiian 
Lavas — Are the Lava-Streams fed from their Sources only ? 2S9 

XXII. 

The Eruption of 1868 from Kilauea — The March and April 
Earthquakes — Land-Slips — Destruction of Life and Proper- 
ty — The Lava-Stream Bursts from Underground — The Vol- 
canic Waves of August, 1868, and of May, 1S77 . . . 313 

XXIII. 

The Eruption of 1880- 1881 — Hilo Threatened as Never Before 
— A Day of Public Prayer — Visitors to the Lava-Flow — It 
Approaches within a Mile of the Shore — Hope Abandoned 
— After Nine Months the Action Suddenly Abates — The 
Deliverance — The Mechanism of a Great Lava-Flow — An 
Idolater Dislodged — Conclusion ...... 327 



I. 



Parentage, Childhood, and Early Years — Militia Ser- 
vice — Asahel Nettleton — Three Years in Western 
New York — Sickness — Home Again — Auburn Sem- 
inary. 

MY father was Gaylord Coan, of Killingworth, 
Middlesex Co., Connecticut. He was a 
thoughtful, quiet, and modest farmer, industrious, 
frugal, and temperate, attending to his own busi- 
ness, living in peace with his neighbors, eschewing 
evil, honest in dealing, avoiding debts, abhorring ex- 
travagance v and profligacy, refusing proffered offices, 
strictly observing the Sabbath, a regular attendant on 
the services of the sanctuary, a constant reader of the 
Bible, and always offering morning and evening 
prayers with the family. He was born Aug. 4, 1768, 
and died Sept. 24, 1857, in ms 90th year. 

My mother was Tamza Nettleton, sister of Josiah 
Nettleton and aunt of Asahel Nettleton, D.D., the 
distinguished Evangelical preacher. She was the 
tender, faithful, and laborious mother of seven chil- 
dren, six sons and one daughter. Of these I was the 
youngest. 

While still in the vigor of womanhood, she was cut 



Life in Hawaii. 



down Jan. 14, 1 81 8, by typhus fever, aged 58. Her 
death left the house desolate, and the loss was deeply 
mourned by all the children. 

After this our father married Miss Piatt, of Say- 
brook, by whom he had one daughter, who died at the 
age of eighteen. 

I was born on the first day of February, Sunday 
morning, 1801, in the town of Killingworth, Conn. 
My physical constitution was good, my health was 
perfect, and my childhood happy. 

From the age of four to twelve I was sent to the 
district school, where the boys and girls were drilled 
in Webster's spelling book, The American Precep- 
tor, writing, arithmetic (Daball's), Morse's geogra- 
phy, Murray's grammar, and the Westminster Shorter 
Catechism. Days and weeks and years went quietly 
along, with the usual experiences of joyous childhood. 
Spring, summer, autumn, and winter each had their 
peculiar charms, their duties and diversions, and I 
moved along the stream with only now and then a 
ripple. 

Once, when a boy of about seven years, I had a 
memorable experience. My father was to be absent 
during the day. and in the morning he said to me, 
"Til: us, go straight to school to-day." When he left, 
some bo) T s came along and persuaded me to play 
truant. Off we started, and spent the day in as 
much pleasure as w r e could enjoy, with some twinges 



School Days. 3 

of guilt and fear. At 4 P.M., the time for the school 
to close, I managed to fall in with the children who 
were returning home. 

Evening came — my father returned. We had sup- 
per and prayers. My conscience throbbed a little, 
and I prepared for bed early. When ready in my 
night-robe to leap into bed, my father called me to 
him. I trembled, but obeyed. Sitting quietly in his 
chair, he laid me, face downward, across his knees, 
took up a small birch rod and said, " Well, Titus, you 
are all ready now for the reward of disobedience — you 
did not go to school." He then gave me a few salu- 
tary touches with the birch, and I stole off to bed. 
That was one of the best lessons of my childhood 
It made a distinct impression upon me which I could 
not forget. It worked through my skin and my flesh, 
and went into my heart. I never played truant again. 

Yes, I did get one more lesson which cooled my 
blood and made me thoughtful. A deep mill-pond 
lay between my home and the school-house. In the 
winter this pond was often frozen over, and my father 
warned me not to venture upon the ice on my way to 
school. One morning when I was nine years old, a 
mate of my age went with me to school. As we came 
to the pond we agreed to have a little slide. We went 
on half-way across the pond, I leading, and Julius fol- 
lowing. Coming to the deepest part of the pond, the 
ice broke suddenly under me and I went under the 



Life in Hawaii. 



water, but found no bottom. I rose to the surface in 
the same place where I went down, and screamed for 
help. My companion stood aghast and feared to 
come near. I threw up my hands and caught hold of 
the ice, but it broke before me. Again and again I 
struggled to find firm hold, but still the treacherous 
ice gave way until I nearly despaired of life. At 
length, however, I came to firmer ice, and clung to 
it as with a death grasp, calling on Julius for help. 
The timid boy approached slowly until his hand 
reached mine ; and with his help and God's mercy I 
was delivered from a watery grave. But it was mid- 
winter, and I was sadly chilled. To avoid freezing 
we ran all the way, a half mile, to the school-house, 
where we found a roaring fire and the master not 
there. I stood by the fire, turning round and round, 
and smoking like a spare-rib, until the master came, 
when I took my seat and shivered until noon. The 
intermission being one hour, I improved it to dry my 
clothes, and went home at evening, charging my 
schoolmate never to tell any one of this event. He 
kept his promise until I came to the Hawaiian Isl- 
ands, and then he told the story. This was another 
lesson which I report with thanks to the Lord for 
sparing my life, and as a warning to all children to 
" Obey their parents in the Lord that their days may 
be long." 

But it is not necessary to enlarge on " the scenes 



Work and Study. 



of my childhood," though diversified, and very many 
of them " dear to my heart." 

Nor will I take time to tell all my childhood's faults ; 
and as for its virtues, I have nothing of which to 
boast. 

When about thirteen' I worked with my father on 
the farm during the summer months, and attended 
school in the winter. The next year I was a pupil in 
a select school at the house of my honored and excel- 
lent pastor, the Rev. Asa King. In this school I 
spent two happy winters, while my summers were 
passed on the farm, or in fishing on Long Island 
Sound, or for shad in early spring in the Connecticut 
River. 

Not satisfied with my knowledge' of English gram- 
mar derived from Murray and unskilled teachers, I 
had private lessons from a teacher fresh from a gram- 
mar school in the city of New York, and under his 
instructions gained a more satisfactory insight into 
the construction of my mother tongue than from all 
my winter's study in what seemed to me dry Murray. 

I also read eagerly such worthy books as I was able 
to buy or borrow ; few indeed, compared with the 
overwhelming flood of literature of the present time. 
I read history, rhetoric, astronomy, philosophy, logic, 
and the standard poets. I joined an Academy in East 
Guilford, now Madison, where I studied with delight 
geometry, trigonometry, surveying, etc., under the 



Life in Hawaii. 



instruction of the Principal, an active graduate of 
Yale College. 

At the age of eighteen I was called to teach a 
school in the town of Saybrook, and from this time 
onward my winters were occupied in teaching in Say- 
brook, Killingworth, and Guilford, until I left New 
England for Western New York. 

When the time came for me to enter the militia 
ranks, according to the laws of the State, I enlisted in 
a company of light artillery whose regiment had 
been commanded by Col. Bray during the war of 1812- 
15, and in- which one of my brothers had served in 
the garrison of my native town during that war. 

In this company I was at once chosen sergeant, and 
in about two years was promoted, receiving first the 
commission of 2d Lieut., then that of 1st Lieut. 

I had been dazzled, while a boy, with the tales of 
military and naval exploits, with the flashing of sa- 
bers, the waving of plumes, and with the beauty of 
uniforms. It had been my delight to watch the evo- 
lutions of cavalry, artillery, and militia regiments on 
days of drill and of general review. I had seen the 
proud war-ships of Britain driving the fishing-boats, 
the sloops, schooners, brigs, barks, ships, all the float- 
ing commerce of Long Island Sound, into our rivers, 
lagoons, bays, creeks, and harbors. I had seen the 
flashes and heard the thunder of their guns ; had 
been wakened at midnight by the alarm-bells of the 



Asahel Nettleton. 



town, and the quick fire of the garrison. I had heard 
of Canada, of Buffalo, of the Northern and Southern 
Lakes, of the Potomac, of Washington, of New- 
Orleans, and of the peace with its joyful celebrations, 
and its thunder-notes of gladness rolling over the 
land. 

Afterward, when all this died out, and a more ration- 
al, a calmer and purer peace spread over land and sea, 
there came a change in my military feelings and as- 
pirations. 

While absent from my native town, a memorable 
season of religious interest was awakened among all 
classes in Killingworth. 

The Rev. Asahel Nettleton, whose fame as an evan- 
gelical preacher has spread over the land, was invited 
to return to the place of his birth, to preach the Gos- 
pel to his kindred and townsmen. He came, and the 
" Power of the Highest " came with him. Our pas- 
tor, Mr. King, was heart and soul with him. Sinai 
thundered the law, and Calvary cried pardon to the 
penitent. " The axe was laid at the root of the trees " 
and the winnowing fan was seen in the hand of the 
Eternal. Conversions multiplied. Profanity was 
hushed. Revelry ceased. " Young men " became 
" sober-minded." The fiddle and the midnight dance 
were superseded by the " Village Hymns," the " Songs 
of Zion," the quiet sanctuary, and the tender, the 
loving, and the happy prayer-meeting. All things be- 



8 Life in Hawaii. 

came new. I heard the fame of them, but was absent. 
In childhood, tender and anxious religious thought 
had often filled my eyes with tears, and my heart with 
throbs. I had prayed under the shadows of rocks 
and lone trees, but no man knew my spiritual wants or 
met them. I regretted my absence from Killingworth 
while my kind pastor and own beloved cousin were 
thus leading thirsty souls to the Fountain of Life. I 
returned just in time to see no of my companions 
and neighbors stand up in the sanctuary and confess 
the Lord Jehovah to be their Lord and Saviour, and 
pledge themselves to love, follow, and obey Him. 

I was thoughtful and sober, but passed on much as 
usual in the ordinary affairs of life. 

In the spring of 1826, with a friend and my sister, 
I left my native home in a private carriage, and went via 
Middletown, Hartford, Stockbridge, Albany, and 
Schenectady to Rochester, taking the Erie Canal at 
Schenectady and leaving our friend to go on in the 
carriage. 

I had then four brothers in Western New York ; the 
oldest, the Rev. George Coan, had received that sum- 
mer a call from the Presbyterian church at Riga, in 
Monroe County, to become its pastor. This call he ac- 
cepted, and at the same time I was engaged to teach 
the large school near the church. Here I often met 
excellent pastors of the surrounding churches, whose 
preaching, religious conversation, and personal friend- 



Fidelia Church. 



ship awakened afresh the pious longings of my soul. 
Most of these pastors are now in heaven, and I know 
of but one who is still living, and now more than four- 
score years old. His letters of love still come to me 
fresh as the dews of Mount Zion. 

During this summer of 1826 I often rode by a 
school-house in a western district of Riga, and through 
the windows I saw a face that beamed on me like 
that of an angel. The image was deeply impressed, 
and is still ineffaceable. 

On inquiry, the young lady proved to be Miss 
Fidelia Church, of Churchville. I often saw her sun- 
lit face in the choir on the Sabbath, for she was a 
sweet singer, but I did not make her acquaintance for 
many months. 

During the summer of 1827, after the close of my 
winter-school, I opened a select-school in Riga, and 
Fidelia applied for admittance. In this I rejoiced 
greatly, for it gave me a good opportunity to mark 
the character of her mind, which proved bright and 
receptive, and to become acquainted with her moral 
and social characteristics. 

I was called again to teach the central school during 

the winter of 1827-8, and though I had not yet united 

with the visible Church, I was elected and urged to 

become superintendent of the Sabbath-school, which 

I reluctantly accepted under the firm resolve to spend 

the remainder of my days, not in doubting and inac- 
1* 



io Life in Hawaii. 

tivity, but in doing what I could to bless my fellow 
mortals, and to honor God. And in this resolution, 
which formed an era in my life, I was greatly helped, 
comforted, and established, so that duty done for 
Christ was a sweet and joyous pleasure. 

On the 2d day of March, 1828, I was received to 
the fellowship of the ■ Presbyterian church in Riga, 
then under the pastoral care of my brother. Although 
I had now publicly devoted myself to the service of 
the Master, my profession was not yet chosen. 

Soon after this union with the church, I visited Me- 
dina, a young and promising village west of Albion, 
in Orleans County, where one of my brothers was es- 
tablished in mercantile business. As this brother 
had long urged me to connect myself with him in his 
business, I went to look into it and to consider his offer. 
I spent the summer and winter with him. 

Here work for the Master opened before me. The 

town was new, the inhabitants were from different 

# 
parts, and of various professions and religious opin- 
ions. But notwithstanding this, there was much har- 
mony in the village, so that, if a Methodist, a Baptist, 
a Presbyterian, an Episcopalian, or a Congregational 
minister came along and was invited to preach, a large 
portion of the people united harmoniously in listening 
to the Gospel ; and when there was no clergyman, the 
layman professors kept up Sabbath services in reading 
sermons, and with exhortation and prayer. I was ap- 



Choosing a Path. 1 1 

pointed Sunday-school superintendent, and this with 
visiting the sick, attending funerals, and assisting the 
brethren in religious services, opened just such a field 
of labor as I needed. 

As winter approached I was again pressed into 
school-teaching, spending outside hours with my broth- 
er in the store. 

Still I had not chosen my life-work. Four paths lay 
before me. My brother wished me to become his 
partner in the mercantile business. A good physician 
in Rochester, and several in other places, advised me 
to become a physician, offering to teach me free of 
charge. Some said I was made for a school teacher, 
and many clergymen and Christian laymen urged me 
to go into the Gospel ministry. 

What should I do ? What could I do ? The sub- 
ject pressed heavily upon my mind and heart. I said 
that teaching is pleasant in youth, but for life it would 
not satisfy me. As for the medical profession, I was 
not adapted to it, and I dared not make the trial. 
But how of the sacred ministry? I felt utterly unfit 
and unworthy — my natural talent, education, piety, 
were all unequal to the exalted calling. As Moses, 
Isaiah, and Jeremiah shrank from the offices of leg- 
islator and prophet, so I from being an ambassador 
of Christ, yet I was willing to work hard as a layman, 
and even longed to go as a servant among the hea- 
then, to help the honored missionaries. Thus my spirit 



12 Hife w* Hawaii. 



labored under a burden which none but God knew, 
and to find relief, I decided to be an active and de- 
voted layman ; to return to Connecticut, finish up my 
business there, and then settle down to a mercantile 
life in Medina. 

In April, 1829, I left Medina for the East, and in 
Bergen met, by agreement, an old and faithful friend, 
the Rev. H. Halsey, who had been chosen by his 
Presbytery a representative to the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian Church, which was to meet in 
Philadelphia the coming May. With him I agreed to 
visit Philadelphia, attend the sessions of the General 
Assembly, and then go on to Connecticut. We took 
the canal-boat at Rochester, and on the next day I 
had a shake of ague, followed by a fever. We had no 
doctor and no medicines, and I kept quiet, thinking to 
brave it out. 

On the next Saturday we reached Syracuse, my 
ague shakes becoming more positive. We left the 
boat and went to Onondaga Hollow, spending the 
Sabbath and Monday with the Principal of an Acad- 
emy, who was brother-in-law to Mr. Halsey. Here 
the ague was heavy and I had little comfort. 

On Tuesday we went on to Albany, and thence by 
steamer to New York ; my chills and fever growing 
all the while more and more intense. Here I gave up 
going to Philadelphia, parting reluctantly with my 
companion. Taking passage up the Sound, I went 



The Decision. 



to Madison, where I had friends. I was then so pros- 
trated I could go no farther, and was laid at once on 
a bed of weakness, from which I did not rise for four 
months. A good physician and kind friends minis- 
tered to me daily, but the disease held me fast until 
I was wasted to a skeleton, so that I could not sit in 
an easy-chair without fainting while my bed was being 
made. This was a time for reflection. 

When the cold winds of autumn came, the disease 
relaxed, and I was taken carefully in an easy carriage 
to my father's house, only seven miles distant. Here 
I was ill until the last of October. I then rose 
through the mercy of God, and was offered the school 
where my cousin Nettleton and where all my broth- 
ers and sisters had been taught their ABC. 

During all that winter there was a cheering revival 
in the town and in my school, and many of my pupils 
were hopefully born again. This was the best year 
of my life up to that time. It was the turning point, 
the day of decision. It was the voice of God to me. 
I could no longer doubt. I had purposed and the 
Lord had disappointed. I had chosen, but He had 
other work for me. I said, Lead me, Saviour. Tell 
me where to go and what to do, and I will go and do. 

On my return to Western New York I had a free 
consultation with many ministerial friends, and all ad- 
vised me to pursue a short course of preparatory study, 
and enter Auburn Theological Seminary. 



14 Life in Hawaii. 

I had formed a pleasant acquaintance with the Rev. 
Lewis Cheeseman, while he was pastor of a church in 
Albion. He then seemed like a. young Apollos, fer- 
vid, eloquent, and impressive. He had now settled 
in Byron and was preaching with great power and 
success. He invited me to study and labor with him, 
as an interesting work of grace was in progress, not 
only in Byron, but in Rochester and many other 
towns of that region. 

Accordingly I spent the summer of 1830 in his 
family, studying and laboring in the revival ; some- 
times meeting the Rev. Charles Finney. 

In the autumn an earnest invitation came to me 
from the Rev. David Page and the church in Knox- 
ville, to come and labor there. I accepted the invi- 
tation, and spent the winter and spring in that place, 
continuing my classical studies, and assisting the pas- 
tor, and conducting evening meetings in surrounding 
villages. The religious interest was widespread, the 
meetings were full and solemn, consciences were ten- 
der, and many were turned to the Lord. 

On the first day of June, 1831, I entered the mid- 
dle class of Auburn Theological Seminary. 

The faculty then consisted of the Rev. Doctors 
Richards, Perrine, and Mills, all noble men and fine 
scholars. 

Here the months and seasons flowed pleasantly 
along, and I was very happy in my studies, in the so- 



Prison Work. 1 5 



ciety of the students and in the instructions of the 
professors. Every Sabbath morning I went with 
other students to teach the convicts in the Auburn 
State Prison, numbering seven or eight hundred, and 
for a year or more I had the office of Superintendent 
of the prison Sunday-school. This work was very 
interesting, as I had personal access to every class and 
to every individual. Many confessed to deeds and 
purposes of great depravity, and some professed a 
radical change of heart. About 200 professed con- 
version. A few of these I afterward met in Roches- 
ter and Albany, of gentlemanly bearing, and in citi- 
zen's dress. I did not recognize the men whom I 
had known in the convict's garb, until they gave me 
their names. I was rejoiced to find them members of 
Sunday-schools and churches, in good business, and 
happily settled in life. 

On the 17th of April, 1833, I was licensed to preach 
the Gospel by the Presbytery of Cayuga County, at 
a meeting in Auburn. 

I was then invited to preach during the summer 
vacation in one of the churches in Rochester, while 
the pastor was absent as a delegate to the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. 

At the close of the vacation, as I was about to re- 
turn to Auburn, the elders of the church in which I 
had labored put the following paper into my hands : 



1 6 Life in Hawaii. 

Rochester, July 8, 1833. 
Rev. Titus Coan : 

Dear Sir : — In behalf of the First Free Presbyterian 
Church and Congregation of Rochester, we present you this 
testimonial of our entire satisfaction of your ministerial labors 
among us during the absence of our beloved pastor, Rev. Luke 
Lyons, who was called from us to attend the General Assem- 
bly of the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. 

You may rest assured that we shall remember you in our 
prayers, and may the Lord abundantly reward you for your 
labors of love among us, guide you by His counsel, and make 
you eminently useful in promoting the Redeemer's Kingdom 
in whatever situation you may be placed. 

We are, dear sir, your friends and brethren in Christ our 
Lord. 

(Signed), A. W. Riley, 
Elisha Ely, 
Nathan Lyman, 
Manly G. Woodbury. 

It was but a few days after my entrance upon my 
last term at the Seminary, when a letter from the 
Rev. Rufus Anderson, Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M. : 
called me to Boston to be ordained, and to sail on a 
mission of exploration to Patagonia, on which expe- 
dition I embarked on the 16th of August, 1833. An 
account of this trip may be found in my "Adventures 
in Patagonia." 



II. 



Marriage — Embarkation for Hawaii — Santiago, 
Callao, and Lima in 1835 — Arrival in Honolulu — 
Passage to Hilo — Our New Home — First Labors. 

ON returning from Patagonia I landed in New 
London, Conn., May 7, 1834. During all 
the long months of my absence in the South, 
not a word had come to me from friends, nor had 
any tidings from me reached the land of my birth. 
There had been many fond recollections and tender 
heart-longings, and quires of paper had been filled, 
but no breath of heaven, no bird of the air had 
wafted these yearnings, these burning thoughts from 
North to South, and from South to North. Over 
the Atlantic or the vast continent no answer had 
come to anxious inquiries, no echo to calls of love. 

But the perils of the sea and of the howling wilder- 
ness of savages were now past, and I was in the land 
of liberty, of light, and of Christian love. 

I went to Boston and reported ; to Killingworth, 

to surprise with joy my aged and mourning father ; 

and to Middlebury in Vermont to find the one whom 

I had chosen, and who had waited patiently and with- 

(17) 



i8 Life in Hawaii. 

out change of object or of purpose, for seven long 
years to welcome this glad day. 

She was then teaching with the dear mother Cooke, 
in the Middlebury Female Seminary. 

She went with me to her father's house in Church- 
ville, where on the 3d of Nov., 1834, we were married 
in the church on Monthly Concert evening. On Nov. 
4th we left for Boston, visiting friends in New York 
and Connecticut by the way. 

On the 23d of November we received our instruc- 
tions as missionaries to the Sandwich Islands, in Park 
Street church, together with Miss Lydia Brown, Miss 
Elizabeth Hitchcock, Mr. Henry Dimond and wife, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Edwin O. Hall. 

On the same occasion a company of twelve mission- 
aries, destined to Southeastern Africa, received their 
instructions. The house was packed and the occa- 
sion was one of great interest. 

On the 5th of December, 1834, we embarked on 
board the merchant ship Hellespont, Capt. John 
Henry, and bade farewell to Boston, to hundreds of 
dear and precious friends, to our dear country, not ex- 
pecting ever to see them again. On the 6th we awoke 
and looked in vain for land. City, hills, mountains, 
had sunk in the ocean, and nothing outside of the 
dancing Hellespont was seen but the ethereal vault 
and the boundless blue sea. 

We plunged into the Gulf Stream and were han- 



Fellow Missionaries. 19 

died roughly by current and wind and foaming wave. 
The wild winds howled, the clouds thickened and 
darkened, and the tempest raged. 

Our good ship labored, plunged, rose, trembled, 
plunged and rose again amidst the foaming billows, 
shaking off the feathery spray like a sea-lion, and 
rushing along her watery way with grandeur. In the 
night her shining pathway was all aglow with count- 
less, sparkling brilliants. Our voyage soon became 
pleasant. The weather was favorable, the captain at- 
tentive and kind, the officers faithful, and the crew 
obedient and respectful. Our seasickness vanished, 
our skies brightened, and we were a happy family, 
daily becoming better acquainted with each other. 
Miss Brown was a maiden lady from New Hampshire, 
of true devotion to the work of the Lord. She was 
appointed to the Islands to teach the women of Ha- 
waii domestic duties, such as carding, spinning, weav- 
ing, etc., in connection with a civilizing Christianity. 
Miss Hitchcock was also a maiden lady, well educated 
and pious. One of her brothers was already an active 
missionary on the Islands, and she was going out to 
assist in teaching. She afterward married Mr. Ed- 
mund H. Rogers, a missionary printer. 

Mr. Dimond came as a book-binder. His good wife 
was Miss Ann Anner, of New York City. Both of 
them are now living. Mr. E. O. Hall was a printer 
from Rochester, N. Y. He also found his wife in 



20 Life in Hawaii. 

New York City, a Miss Williams, a devoted lady. 
Mrs. Hall died a few years ago. 

This united circle held morning and evening devo- 
tions, and our days were spent in reading, writing, and 
social intercourse. On Sabbaths when the weather 
was favorable we had preaching, at which service the 
captain, officers, and crew were present. 

But I need not detain the reader with a third voyage 
in the Atlantic. Enough to say that we passed pleas- 
antly along to the South, sinking the Northern con- 
stellations one by one, and raising the Southern, see- 
ing no Equatorial line, no Neptune, and no land until 
the hills of Terra del Fuego lifted their snowy heads 
upon us above the clouds. I had longed to see the 
wild coast of Patagonia and the Falkland Islands, 
where only a year before I had roamed with the sav- 
age tribes, or found more comforts among the whalers 
and sealers of those southern islets. But we passed 
between the Continent and the Islands, descrying 
neither. 

My heart mourned for this land of Patagonia, a 
land on which the shadows of death had always rested, 
and where no day had yet dawned. 

We passed through the Strait of Le Maire, and 
with all sails set, in a balmy and bright summer day 
sailed very near the dreaded Cape Horn. 

Only a day after we had set our studding sails and 
spread all our canvas, a stormy wind took us far 



The Voyage — Santiago, 2 1 

toward the Southern Cross and the ice mountains of 
the Antarctic. But in a few days, more favoring gales 
hurried us Northward again, and on the 8th of March 
the joyful sound of " land ho ! " thrilled all on board, 
and the lofty Cordillera chain stood out in grandeur 
before us. It was Chili, and the city of Valparaiso 
was in sight. We came into the roadstead, dropped 
anchor, furled sails, congratulated one another, and 
blessed the Lord for a safe passage thus far. 

As the Hellespont was to remain in port about 
twenty days, Mr. Dimond and I engaged a carriage 
and driver, and made a trip to Santiago, the capital of 
Chili, about ioo miles inland and near the foot-hills of 
the Andes. Our ride was very exhilarating. This 
city is one of the most beautiful in South America, 
well watered from the mountain snows, and well 
shaded with trees. On our way we passed over high 
hills and broad plains. The roads over these hills 
were wide and cut in zigzag lines, with ample terraces 
or resting-places at the angles. On ascending one of 
these lofty hills at early dawn, we descried the heads 
of two men, recently severed, each nailed to a high 
post at different places, and grinning ghastly upon us. 
Our driver told us that these men were highway rob- 
bers and murderers ; that they had, on -going up this 
hill, perpetrated the vilest of crimes, killed a husband 
and his wife, with two children, stolen their baggage, 
clothes, and horse, and thrown the dead bodies into 



22 Life in Hawaii. 

a deep ravine below ; and for these horrid crimes their 
heads had been made beacons of warning to all who 
passed along this road. 

We left Valparaiso on the 27th of March, and an- 
chored in the harbor of Callao, Peru, on the 6th of 
April, 1835. Here we spent twenty-one days, giving 
us opportunity of going on shore as often as we de- 
sired, of visiting Lima, of attending the gorgeous cer- 
emonies of Passion Week, of looking into the grand 
Cathedral and their splendid churches, and of notic- 
ing the monuments of art, and the scars of revolution 
in that renowned, but often suffering, desecrated, and 
vandalized city. 

With the courteous Bishop of Lima, we went 
through the Cathedral, he bowing and crossing him- 
self as he passed by the various pictures and statues, 
telling us of the guardian care of the different saints 
over the city. 

We left Callao on the 27th of April, saw the mount- 
ains of Hawaii on the 5th of June, and on the 6th 
landed in Honolulu. The Hawaiian mission was then 
in session, and on the arrival of the Hellespont, the 
mission appointed a committee of three to meet us 
on board, while the meeting was adjourned, and a 
large part of the members with wives and children 
came down to the wharf to welcome us, and to escort 
iis to the house of the Rev. Hiram Bingham. The 
welcome was warm and warmly reciprocated, and the 



A Month in Honolulu. 23 

meeting was joyful. It seemed to us apostolical. We 
regarded these veteran toilers with a feeling of ven- 
eration. Some looked vigorous and strong, others 
seemed pallid and wayworn. Here were the fathers 
and mothers in Israel, and here the brothers and sis- 
ters, with flocks of precious children. We rejoiced that 
we were permitted to be numbered with this honored 
and happy family. We all united in a hymn of praise 
and thanksgiving to God, and then knelt in prayer. 

The new reinforcement united in the daily meet- 
ings of the mission until the closing of its sessions, 
when we went forth to our appointed stations ; my 
wife and I to Hilo, Hawaii, with Mr. and Mrs. Ly- 
man. 

We embarked at Honolulu, in the schooner Veloc- 
ity, falsely so-called, on the 6th of July. The schooner 
was small, a slow sailer, dirty, crowded with more 
than one hundred passengers, mostly natives, and 
badly managed. The captain was an Irishman given 
to hard drinking. 

We sailed from Honolulu on Monday. The sea 
was rough and nearly all of the passengers were very 
seasick. Our first port was Lahaina, eighty miles 
from Honolulu, where we were to land Mr. and Mrs. 
Richards, Dr. and Mrs. Chapin, Mr. and Mrs. Spauld- 
ing, and other families. On Wednesday morning the 
captain announced that the land just ahead was Maui, 
and that we should all land in about an hour at La- 



24 Life in Hawaii. 



haina, where we might rest a day, bathe, eat grapes 
and watermelons, and be refreshed for the rest of the 
voyage, about 150 miles further. 

But the poor captain's eyes were dazed, and he had 
lost his reckoning. We had gone about in the night 
and we were back at Honolulu ! This fact came upon 
us with a shock of agony. After such seasickness as 
some of us had never before endured, the dreadful 
thought came over us, " Shall we ever reach our 
homes on this vessel and with this master? " Many of 
us had tasted neither food nor water from Monday to 
Wednesday, and all had lain crowded on a dirty deck, 
exposed to wind, rain, and wave, and how could we 
live to reach our destination ? But there was no alter- 
native. We said go, and the dull Velocity went about 
and headed again for Lahaina, where we landed passen- 
gers, and on the 21st we saw the emerald beauty of 
Hilo, and disembarked with joy and thanksgiving. 
Hundreds of laughing natives thronged the beach, 
seized our hands, gave us the hearty "Aloha" and 
followed us up to the house of our good friends, Mr. 
and Mrs. Lyman, who were with us to comfort and 
inform us all the way. 

The bay of Hilo is a beautiful, spacious, and safe 
harbor. The outline of its beach is a crescent like 
the moon in her first quarter. The beach is com- 
posed of fine, volcanic sand, mixed with a little coral 
and earth. On its eastern and western sides, and in 



Hilo and Hilo Bay. 25 

its center, it is divided by three streams of pure wa- 
ter; it has a deep channel about half a mile wide, 
near the western shore, sufficiently deep to admit the 
largest ship that floats. Seaward it is protected by a 
lava reef one mile from the shore. This reef was 
formed by a lateral stream of lava, sent out at right 
angles from a broad river of molten rocks that formed 
our eastern coast. This reef is a grand barrier against 
the swell of the ocean. Lord Byron, who visited 
Hilo, when he brought home the corpses of King 
Liholiho and his queen, gave the name of " Byron's 
Bay " to this harbor, but that name is nearly obsolete. 

The beach was once beautifully adorned with the 
cocoa palm, whose lofty plumes waved and rustled 
and glittered in the fresh sea-breeze. Beyond our 
quiet bay the broad, blue ocean foams or sleeps, with 
a surface sometimes shining like molten silver, tum- 
bling in white foam, or gently throbbing as with the 
pulsations of life. 

Inland, from the shore to the bases of the mount- 
ains, the whole landscape is " arrayed in living 
green," presenting a picture of inimitable beauty, so 
varied in tint, so grooved with water channels, and so 
sparkling with limpid streams and white foaming cas- 
cades, as to charm the eye, and cause the beholder to 
exclaim, " This is a scene of surpassing loveliness." 

Behind all this in the background, tower the lofty, 

snow-mantled mountains, Kea and Loa, out of one of 
2 



26 Life in Hawaii. 

which rush volcanic fires. At the first sight we were 
charmed with the beauty and the grandeur of the 
scene, and we exclaimed, " Surely the lines are fallen 
to us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heri- 
tage. 

We were satisfied, yes more, we were delighted, with 
our location, and to this day we bless the Lord that 
He inclined the minds of the mission to assign us to 
this field of labor. In this, as in all the past, we see 
the guiding hand of Him who has promised to " direct 
the steps " of all who " commit their way to Him." 

Hilo had then but one framed house. It was a low, 
two-story building in the style of a New England 
farm-house, built and occupied by the Rev. Joseph 
Goodrich, a good and faithful missionary of the A. B. 
C. F. M. 

Mr. Lyman's home, into which we were received, 
was a small, stone house, with walls laid up with mud, 
and a thatched roof. Each family had but one room 
about fifteen feet square. 

Mr. Goodrich, with his family, left Hilo in Novem- 
ber for the United States, not to return, and we were 
advised to occupy his house, which with later addi- 
tions and improvements has been our habitation ever 
since. 

Mr. Lyman soon built a comfortable house near us, 
and the old stone-and-mud hut was devoted to a school- 
room. 



Work and Study, 2 J 

By the advice of the Lymans, who had been two 
years in Hilo, and whose experience and wise counsel 
were of great use to us, we at once began teaching a 
school of about a hundred almost naked boys and 
girls, being ourselves pupils of a good man named 
Barnabas, who patiently drilled us daily in the lan- 
guage of his people. By reading, trying to talk, teach 
and write, we crept along, without grammar or dic- 
tionary, the mist lifting slowly before us, until at the 
end of three months from our arrival, I went into the 
pulpit with Mr. Lyman, and preached my first sermon 
in the native language. Soon after, I made a tour with 
him into Puna, one wing of our field, and then through 
the district of Hilo, in an opposite direction. These 
tours introduced me to the people for whom I was to 
labor, and with whom I had a burning desire to com- 
municate freely, and helped me greatly in acquiring 
the language. 

The General Meeting at Honolulu in June had ad- 
vised Mr. Lyman and myself to establish a board- 
ing-school for boys, leaving to us the question as to 
which of us should be the principal of the school, 
and which the traveling missionary. 

He chose the school as his chief work, and I the 
pastoral and preaching department. Our labors, how- 
ever, were not separated for a long time, he preaching 
always when I was absent on tours, and often when I 
was at home ; we always worked in harmony. After 



28 Life in Hawaii. 

a year or two, the school being enlarged and im- 
portant, Mr. Lyman requested the mission to accept 
his resignation of the joint pastorate of the church and 

4 

to appoint me as the sole pastor. This was done har- 
moniously, and we have labored side by side until the 
present day, mutually assisting, and rejoicing in the 
success of all departments of the service. 

Under the efficient care of Mr. and Mrs. Lyman the 
school has been a great success. Its department of 
manual labor is an important feature in the institu- 
tion. It has given a very valuable physical training 
to the boys, imparting to them skill and health, 
and making the school nearly self-supporting. The 
young men are well dressed, neat and manly in their ap- 
pearance, and give evidence of an elevation above the 
common masses around them. In all, the Seminary 
has graduated about one thousand pupils. Many 
of them are among the most useful members of so- 
ciety, and some of them have become legislators, 
judges, teachers, Christian ministers, foreign mission- 
aries, etc. 

Mr. Lyman, feeling obliged through declining 
health to resign his office as Principal, the Rev. W. 
B. Oleson was appointed in September, 1878, as his 
successor. 



III. 

The Field — The People — Hilo District — Crossing the 
Torrents — Perils of a Canoe Voyage — Puna Dis- 
trict. 

THE field in which I was called to labor is a 
belt of land extending by the coast-line ioo miles 
on the north-east, east, and south-east shore of Ha- 
waii, including the districts of Hilo and Puna, and a 
part of Kau. 

The inhabited belt is one to three miles wide, and 
in a few places there were hamlets and scattering vil- 
lages five to ten miles inland. Beyond this narrow 
shore belt there is a zone of forest trees with a trop- 
ical jungle from ten to twenty-five miles wide, almost 
impenetrable by man or beast. Still higher is another 
zone of open country girdling the bases of the mount- 
ains, with a rough surface of hill, dale, ravine, scori- 
aceous lava fields, rocky ridges, and plains and hills of 
pasture land. Here wild goats, wild cattle, with hogs 
and wild geese feed. Still higher up tower Mauna Kea> 
and Mauna Loa, nearly 14,000 feet above the sea, 
the former being a pile of extinct craters, often crown- 

(29) 



o 



o Life in Hawaii. 



ed with snow, and the latter a mountain of fire, where 
for unknown ages earthquakes that rock the group 
and convulse the ocean have been born, and where 
volcanoes burst out with awful roar, and rush in fiery- 
rivers down the mountain sides, across the open plains, 
through the blazing forest jungle and into the sea. 
All but the narrow shore belt is left to untamed bird 
and beast, and to the wild winds and raging fires of 
the mountains, except when bird-catchers, canoe- 
makers, cattle-hunters, or volcano visitors are drawn 
thither by their several interests from the shore. 

The population of this shore belt was probably 7 at 
that time about 15,000 to 16,000, almost exclusively 
natives. Very few foreigners had then come here to 
live. Several missionaries had resided in Hild for 
short periods, but none had settled here permanently 
except Mr. and Mrs. Lyman. Occasional tours had 
been made through Hilo and Puna, and the Gospel had 
been preached in most of the villages. Schools had 
also been established through the districts and a good- 
ly number could read and write. Some pupils were 
in the elements of arithmetic, and many committed 
lessons in the Scriptures to memory. 

Forms of idolatry were kept out of sight, but super- 
stition and ignorance, hypocrisy and most of the lower 
vices prevailed. The people were all slaves to their 
chiefs, and no man but a chief owned a foot of land, 
a tree, a pig, a fowl, his wife, children, or himself. All 



Hilo District. 31 



belonged to his chief and could be taken at will, if anger 
or covetousness or lust called for them. I have seen 
families by the score turned out of their dwellings, 
all their effects seized, and they sent off wailing, to 
seek shelter and food where they could. " On the 
side of the oppressor there was power, but the poor 
man had no comforter." 

HlLO, the northern wing of this field, is a district 
including about thirty miles of its shore line. It is 
covered with a deep rich soil, clothed with perennial 
green of every shade, watered with the rain of heaven, 
and grooved by about eighty water channels that run on 
an angle of some three degrees, leaping over hundreds 
of precipices of .varied heights, from three or four feet 
to 500, and plunging into the sea over a cliff rising in 
height, from the sand beach of the town, to 700 or 
800 feet along the northern coast-line. 

For many years after our arrival there were no roads, 
no bridges, and no horses in Hilo, and all my tours 
were made on foot. These were three or four annually 
through Hilo, and as many in Puna ; the time occu- 
pied in making them was usually ten to twenty days 
for each trip. 

In passing through the district of Hilo, the weath- 
er was sometimes fine and the rivers low, so that there 
was little difficulty in traveling. The path was a sim- 
ple trail, winding in a serpentine line, going down and 
up precipices, some of which could only be descended 



2,2 Life in Hawaii. 

and ascended by grasping the shrubs and grasses, and 
with no little weariness and difficulty and some dan- 
ger. 

But the streams were the most formidable obstacles. 
In great rains, which often occurred on my tours, when 
the winds rolled in the heavy clouds from the sea, 
and massed them in dark banks on the side of the 
mountain, the waters would fall in torrents at the 
head of the streams and along their channels, and the 
rush and the roar as the floods came down were like 
the thunder of an army charging upon the foe. 

I have sometimes sat on the high bank of a stream- 
let, not more than fifteen to twenty feet wide, convers- 
ing with natives in the bright sunshine, when suddenly 
a portentous roaring, " Like the sound of many waters, 
or like the noise of the sea when the waves thereof roar," 
fell upon my ears, and looking up-stream, I have seen 
a column of turbid waters six feet deep coming down 
like the flood from a broken mill-dam. The natives 
would say to me, " Awiwl ! awiwi ! o paa oe i ka 
wai " — " Quick ! quick ! or the waters will stop you." 

Rushing down the bank I would cross over, dry- 
shod, where in two minutes more there was no lon- 
ger any passage for man or beast. But I rarely waited 
for the rivers to run by. My appointments for preach- 
ing were all sent forward in a line for thirty or sixty 
miles, designating the day, and usually the hours, 
when I would be at a given station, and by breaking 



Foot-Touring. ^>Z 

one of these links the whole chain would be disturbed. 
It therefore seemed important that every appointment 
should be kept, whatever the inconvenience might be 
to me. In traveling, my change of raiment was all 
packed in one calabash, or large gourd, covered by 
the half of another ; a little food was in a second cala- 
bash. With these gourds one may travel indefinitely 
in the heaviest rains while all is dry within. Faith- 
ful natives carried my little supplies. 

I had several ways of crossing the streams. 

1st. When the waters were low, large rocks and 
boulders, common in all the water-channels, were left 
bare, so that with a stick or pole eight or ten feet 
long, I leaped from rock to rock over the giddy 
streams and crossed dry-shod : these same poles help- 
ing me to climb up, and to let myself down steep 
precipices, and to leap ditches six to eight feet wide. 
2d. When the streams were not too deep and too 
swift I waded them ; and 3d, when not too deep, but 
too swift, I mounted upon the shoulders of a sturdy 
aquatic native, holding on to his bushy hair, when he 
moved carefully down the slippery bank of the river, 
leaning up-stream against a current of ten knots, and 
moving one foot at a time, sideways among the slimy 
boulders in the bottom, and then bringing the other 
foot carefully up. Thus slowly feeling his way across, 
he would land me safe with a shout and a laugh on 

the opposite bank. But this is a fearful way of cross- 

2* 



34 Life i7i Hawaii. 



ing, for the cataracts are so numerous, the waters so 
rapid, and the uneven bottom so slippery, that the 
danger of falling is imminent, and the recovery from 
a fall often impossible, the current hurrying one swift- 
ly over a precipice into certain destruction. Both 
natives and foreigners have thus lost their lives in 
these streams, and among them three of the members 
of the Hilo church who have traveled and labored 
and prayed with me. 

I once crossed a full and powerful river in this way, 
not more than fifty feet above a cataract of 426 feet 
in height, with a basin forty feet deep below, where 
this little Niagara has thundered for ages. A mis- 
sionary brother of another station seeing me landed 
safely, and knowing that this crossing would save 
about six miles of hard and muddy walking, followed 
me on the shoulders of the same bold native that took 
me over. But before he had reached the middle of 
the rushing flood, he trembled and cried out with fear. 
The bearer said, " Hush ! hush ! be still, or we perish 
together." The brother still trembling, the native 
with great difficulty managed to reach a rock in the 
center of the river, and on this he seated his burden, 
commanding him to be quiet and sit there until he 
was cool (he was already drenched with rain and 
river-spray), when he would take him off, which he did 
in about ten minutes and landed him safely by my 
side. 



Crossing Torrents. 35 

This mode of crossing the streams, however, was 
too dangerous, and I soon abandoned it. 

A fourth mode was for a sufficient number of strong 
men to form a chain across the river. They made 
a line, locking hands on the bank ; with heads bend- 
ing up-stream entering the water carefully, and mov- 
ing slowly until the head of the line reached good foot- 
hold near the opposite bank. With my hands upon 
the shoulders of the men I passed along this chain of 
bones, sinews, and muscles and arrived in safety on 
the other side. 

The fifth and safest, and in fact the only possible 
way to cross some of these rivers when swollen and 
raging, was to throw a rope across the stream, and 
fasten it to trees or rocks on either side ; grasping it 
firmly with both hands, my feet thrown down-stream, 
I drew myself along the line and gained the opposite 
bank. This I sometimes did without removing shoes 
or garments, then walked on to my next station, and 
preached in wet clothes, continuing my travels and 
labors until night ; when in dry wrappings I slept well, 
and was all ready for work the next day. 

I was once three hours in crossing one river. The 
day was cold and rainy, and I was soaked before I 
entered the stream. This was so wide at the only 
possible crossing point, that we were unable to throw 
a line across, even with a weight attached to the end 
of it. The raging, roaring, and tossing of the waters 



S6 Life in Hawaii. 

were fearful, and the sight of it made me shudder. 
Kind natives collected on both banks by scores, with 
ropes and courage to help. The fearful rapids, run- 
ning probably twenty miles an hour, were before us. 
Fifty feet below us was a fall of some twenty feet, 
and about ioo yards further down was a thundering 
cataract, where the river was compressed within a 
narrow gorge with a clear plunge of about eighty feet. 

Our natives tried all their skill and strength, but 
could not throw the line across. At length a daring 
man went up-stream close to a waterfall, took the 
end of the rope in his teeth, mounted a rock, calcu- 
lated his chances of escape from the cataracts be- 
low, and leaped into the flood ; down, down he went 
quivering and struggling till he reached the opposite 
shore only a few feet above the fall, over which it 
must have been a fatal plunge had he gone. But by 
his temerity, which I should have forbidden, had I 
known it in season, a passage was provided for me. 

After years had passed, and a little had been done 
toward making roads, I purchased a horse, and tried 
to get him over these streams by swimming or haul- 
ing him over with ropes. Twice when I attempted 
to go over in the saddle, his foot caught between two 
rocks in the middle of the stream, and horse and rider 
were saved only by the energy and fidelity of the na- 
tives. 

Once in going up a steep precipice in a narrow pass 



Canoe- Trips. 3 7 

between a rocky height on one hand and a stream 
close on the other, my horse fell over backward and 
lay with his head down and his feet in the air, so 
wedged and so wounded that he could never have 
escaped from his position, had not a company of na- 
tives for whom I sent came to the rescue and extri- 
cated the poor, faithful animal from his rocky bed. I 
escaped instant death by sliding out of the saddle 
upon the narrow bank of the stream, before the back 
of my horse struck between the rocks. He was so 
hurt that I was obliged to leave him to recover. 

In order to save time and escape the weariness of 
the road and the dangers of the rivers, I sometimes 
took a canoe at the end of my tours to return home 
by the water. This trip required six to eight hours, 
and was usually made in the night. 

On three occasions my peril was great. One de- 
scription will suffice for all ; for although the diffi- 
culties and escapes were at different points along a 
precipitous and lofty sea-wall, yet the causes of danger 
were the same, viz. : stormy winds, raging billows, and 
want of landing-places. 

About midway between our starting-place and Hilo 
harbor, we were met by a strong head-wind, with pour- 
ing rain and tumultuous waves in a dark midnight. 
We were half a mile from land, but could hear the 
roar and see the flashing of the white surf as it dashed 
against the rocky walls. We could not land, we could 



38 Life in Hawaii. 

not sail, we could not row forward or backward, All 
we could do was to keep the prow of the canoe to 
the wind, and bail. Foaming seas dashed against our 
frail cockleshell, pouring in buckets of brine. Thus 
we lay about five hours, anxious as they "who watch 
for the morning." At length it dawned ; we looked 
through the misty twilight to the rock-bound shore 
where " the waves dashed high." A few doors of na- 
tive huts opened and men crawled out. We called, 
but no echo came. We made signals of distress. We 
were seen and numbers came down to the cliffs and 
gazed at us. We waved our garments for them to 
come off to our help. They feared, they hesitated. 
We were opposite the mouth of a roaring river, where 
the foam of breakers dashed in wild fury. At last 
four naked men came down from the cliff, plunged 
into the sea, dived under one towering wave after an- 
other, coming out to breathe between the great roll- 
ing billows, and thus reached our canoe. Ordering 
the crew to swim to the land, they took charge of the 
canoe themselves because they knew the shore. Mean- 
while men stood on the high bluffs with kapa cloth in 
hand to signal to the boat-men when to strike for the 
mouth of the river. They waited long and watched 
the tossing waves as they rolled in and thundered 
upon the shore, and when at last a less furious wave 
came behind us, the shore men waved the signals and 
cried out, "Hoi/ hoi J '" and as the waves lifted the 



Puna District. 39 



stern of our canoe, all the paddles struck the water, 
while the steerer kept the canoe straight on her course, 
and thus mounted on this crested wave as on an ocean 
chariot, with the feathery foam flying around us, we 
rode triumphantly into the mouth of the river, where 
we were received with shouts of gladness by the 
throng who had gathered to witness our escape. 
Then two rows of strong men waded into the surf up 
to their arm-pits to receive our canoe and bear it in 
triumph to the shore. 

Praising the Lord for His goodness, and thanking 
the kind natives for their agency in delivering me, I 
walked the rest of the way home. 

The district of Puna lies east and south of Hilo, 
and its physical features are remarkably different 
from those of the neighboring district. 

Its shore line, including its bends and flexures, is more 
than seventy miles in extent. For three miles inland 
from the sea it is almost a dead level, with a surface of 
pahoehoe or field lava, and a-a or scoriaceous lava, inter- 
spersed with more or less rich volcanic soil and trop- 
ical verdure, and sprinkled with sand-dunes and a few 
cone and pit-craters. Throughout its length it is 
marked with ancient lava streams, coming down from 
Kilauea and entering the sea at different points along 
the coast. These lava streams vary in width from 
half a mile to two or three miles. From one to three 
miles from the shore the land rises rapidly into the 



40 Life in Hawaii. 

great volcanic dome of Mauna Loa (Long Mountain). 
The highlands are mostly covered with woods and 
jungle, and scarred with rents, pits, and volcanic cones. 
Everywhere the marks of terrible volcanic action are 
visible. The whole district is so cavernous, so rent 
with fissures, and so broken by fiery agencies, that 
not a single stream of water keeps above-ground to 
reach the sea. All the rain-fall is swallowed by the 
10,000 crevices, and disappears, except the little that 
is held in small pools and basins, waiting for evapora- 
tion. The rains are abundant, and subterranean fount- 
ains and streams are numerous, carrying the waters 
down to the sea level, and filling caverns, and burst- 
ing up along the shore in springs and rills, even far 
out under the sea. Some of these waters are very 
cold, some tepid, and some stand at blood heat, fur- 
nishing excellent warm baths. There are large caves 
near the sea where we enter by dark and crooked pas- 
sages, and bathe "by torchlight, far underground, in 
deep and limpid water. 

Puna has many beautiful groves of the cocoa-palm, 
also breadfruit, pandanus, and ohia, and where there 
is soil it produces under cultivation, besides common 
vegetables, arrowroot, sugar-cane, coffee, cotton, or- 
anges, citrons, limes, grapes, and other fruits. On the 
highlands, grow wild strawberries, cape gooseberries, 
and the ohelo, a delicious berry resembling our whor- 
tleberry. 



Outlying Villages. 41 

On the shore line of the eastern part of Kau, ad- 
joining Puna, were several villages, containing from 
500 to 700 inhabitants, separated from the inhabited 
central and western portions of the district by a desert 
of unwatered lava about 15 miles wide, without a sin- 
gle house or human being. These villages were occa- 
sionally visited by the Rev. Mr. Forbes, then stationed 
in South Kona ; but to reach them required a long, 
weary walk over the fields of burning lava, and at his 
request, I took them under my charge, thus extending 
the shore line of my parish ten miles westward. 



IV. 

First Tours in Hilo and Puna— The Work of 1S37- 
38 _ Spontaneous Church - building — The Great 
Awakening— The Volcanic Wave — Pastoral Ex- 
periences and Methods— The Ingathering. 

I MADE my first tours of Hilo and Puna during 
the latter part of my first half year on Hawaii. 
In 1836 I had gained so much in the language as to 
be able to converse, preach, and pray with comfort 
and with apparent effect on my audiences. 

On my arrival in Hilo, the number of church mem- 
bers was twenty-three, all living in the town. A con- 
siderable portion of our time was then devoted to the 
schools. Mr. and Mrs. Lyman were heartily engaged 
in the boys' boarding-school. Mrs. Coan was already 
teaching a day-school of 140 children, and I a training- 
school of 90 teachers to supply the schools of Hilo 

and Puna. 

Giving a vacation to my pupils, I set off Nov. 29, 
1836, on a tour around the island. This was made 
on foot, with the exception of a little sailing in a canoe 
down the coast of Kona. My companions were two 
or three natives, to act as guides and porters. On 
reaching the western coast of Kau, I visited all the 
(42) 



The Hearers. 43 



villages along the shore, preaching and exhorting 
everywhere. The people came out, men, women, and 
children, in crowds, and listened with great attention. 
Here I preached three, four, and five times a day, and 
had much personal conversation with the natives on 
things pertaining to the kingdom of God. 

On reaching the western boundaries of Puna, my 
labors became more abundant. I had visited this peo- 
ple before, and had noticed a hopeful interest in a 
number of them. Now they rallied in masses, and 
were eager to hear the Word. Many listened with 
tears, and after the preaching, when I supposed they 
would return to their homes and give me rest, they 
remained and crowded around me so earnestly, that I 
had no time to eat, and in places where I spent my 
nights they filled the house to its entire capacity, leav- 
ing scores outside who could not enter. All wanted 
to hear more of the " Word of Life." At ten or elev- 
en o'clock I would advise them to go home and to 
sleep. Some would retire, but more remain until 
midnight. At cock-crowing the house would be again 
crowded, with as many more outside. 

At one place before I reached the point where I was 
to spend a Sabbath, there was a line of -four villages 
not more than half a mile apart. Every village beg- 
ged for a sermon and for personal conversation. Com- 
mencing at daylight I preached in three of them before 
breakfast, at 10 A.M. When the meeting closed at 



44 Life in Hawaii. 

one village, most of the people ran on to the next, 
and thus my congregation increased rapidly from 
hour to hour. Many were "pricked in their hearts" 
and were inquiring what they should do to be saved. 
Sunday came and I was now in the most populous 
part of Puna. Multitudes came out to hear the Gos- 
pel. The blind were led ; the maimed, the aged and 
decrepit, and many invalids were brought on the 
backs of their friends. There was great joy and much 
weeping in the assembly. Two days were spent in 
this place, and ten sermons preached, while almost 
all the intervals between the public services were 
spent in personal conversation with the crowds which 
pressed around me. 

Many of the people who then wept and prayed 
proved true converts to Christ ; most of them have 
died in the faith, and a few still live as steadfast wit- 
nesses to the power of the Gospel. 

Among these converts was the High Priest of the 
volcano. He was more than six feet high and of 
lofty bearing. He had been an idolater, a drunkard, 
an adulterer, a robber, and a murderer. For their ka- 
pas, for a pig or a fowl he had killed men on the road, 
whenever they hesitated to yield to his demands. 
But he became penitent, and appeared honest and 
earnest in seeking the Lord. 

His sister was more haughty and stubborn. She 
was High Priestess of the volcano. She, too, was tall 



Growing Interest. 45 

and majestic in her bearing. For a long time she re- 
fused to bow to the claims of the Gospel ; but at 
length she yielded, confessed herself a sinner and un- 
der the authority of a higher Power, and with her 
brother became a docile member of the church. 

During this tour of thirty days I examined twenty 
schools with an aggregate of 1,200 pupils. 

After my return, congregations at the center in- 
creased in numbers and in interest. Meetings for 
parents, for women, for church members, for children, 
were frequent and full. Soon scores and hundreds 
who had heard the Gospel in Kau, Puna, and Hilo, 
came into the town to hear more. During all the 
years of 1837-8, Hilo was crowded with strangers; 
whole families and whole villages in the country were 
left, with the exception of a few of the old people, 
and in some instances even the aged and the feeble 
were brought in on litters from a distance of thirty or 
fifty miles. Little cabins studded the place like the 
camps of an army, and we estimated that our popula- 
tion was increased to 10,000 souls. Those who re- 
mained some time, fished, and planted potatoes and 
taro for food. Our great native house of worship, near- 
ly 200 feet long, by about eighty-five feet wide, with a 
lofty roof of thatch, was crowded almost to suffoca- 
tion, while hundreds remained outside unable to en- 
ter. This sea of faces, all hushed except when sighs 
and sobs burst out here and there, was a scene to 



46 Life in Hawaii. 

melt the heart. The word fell with power, and some- 
times as the feeling deepened, the vast audience was 
moved and swayed like a forest in a mighty wind. 
The word became like the "fire and the hammer" of 
fire Almighty, and it pierced like a two-edged sword. 
Hopeful converts were multiplied and " there was 
great joy in the city." 

Finding the place of our worship "too strait" for 
the increasing multitudes, our people, of their own ac- 
cord and without the knowledge of their teachers, went 
up into the forest three to five miles, with axes, and with 
ropes made of vines and bark of the hibiscus, cut down 
trees of suitable size and length for posts, rafters, etc., 
and hauled them down through mud and jungle, and 
over streams and hillocks to the town. Seeing a very 
large heap of this timber, I inquired what this meant. 
The reply was, " We will build a second house of wor- 
ship so that the people may all be sheltered from sun 
and rain on the Sabbath. And this is our thought ; 
all of the people of Hilo shall meet in the larger house, 
where you w r ill preach to them in the morning, during 
which time the people of Puna and Kau will meet for 
prayer in the smaller house, and in the afternoon 
these congregations shall exchange places, and you will 
preach to the Puna and Kau people ; thus all will hear 
the minister." 

Several thousands, both men and women, took 
hold of the work, and in about three weeks from the 



The Congregations. 47 

commencement of the hauling of the timber, the 
house was finished and a joyful crowd of about 2,000 
filled it on the Sabbath. 

Neither of the houses had floors or seats. The 
ground was beaten hard and covered from week to 
week with fresh grass. 

When we wished to economize room, or seat the 
greatest possible number, skilled men were employed 
to arrange the people standing in compact rows as 
tight as it was possible to crowd them, the men and 
women being separated, and when the house was 
thus filled with these compacted ranks, the word was 
given them to sit down, which they did, a mass of 
living humanity, such perhaps as was never seen ex- 
cept on Hawaii. 

During these years my tours through the extended 
parish were not given up. Nearly every person left 
in the villages came to the preaching stations. There 
were places along the routes where there were no 
houses near the trail, but where a few families were 
living half a mile or more inland. In such places, 
the few dwellers would come down to the path lead- 
ing their blind, and carrying their sick and aged upon 
their backs, and lay them down under a tree if there 
was one near, or upon the naked rocks, that they might 
hear of a Saviour. It was often affecting to see these 
withered and trembling hands reached out to grasp 
the hand of the teacher, and to hear the palsied, the 



48 Life in Hawaii. 

blind, and the lame begging him to stop awhile and 
tell them the story of Jesus. These pleas could not 
be resisted, for the thought would instantly arise, 
" This may be the last time." And so it often was, 
for on my next tour some of them had gone never 
to return. It was a comforting thought that they 
had been told of " the Lamb of God who taketh 
away the sin of the world," and to feel a sweet as- 
surance from their tears of joy and eager reception of 
the truth that they had found " Him of whom Moses 
and the Prophets wrote." 

Time swept on ; the work deepened and widened. 
Thousands on thousands thronged the courts of the 
Lord. All eastern and southern Hawaii was like a 
sea in motion. Waimea, Hamakua, Kohala, Kona, 
and the other islands of the group, were moved. Re- 
porting and inquiring letters circulated from post to 
post, and from island to island. One asked another, 
"What do these things mean?" and the reply was, 
" What indeed ? " Some said that the Hawaiians 
were a peculiar people, and very hypocritical, so de- 
based in mind and heart that they could not receive 
any true conception of the true God, or of spiritual 
things; even their language was wanting in terms to 
convey ideas of sacred truth ; we must not hope for 
evangelical conversions among them. But most of 
the laborers redoubled their efforts, were earnest in 
prayer, and worked on in faith. Everywhere the 



Revival Interest. 49 

trumpet of jubilee sounded long and loud, and "as 
clouds and as doves to their windows," so ransomed 
sinners flocked to Christ. 

I had seen great and powerful awakenings under 
the preaching of Nettleton and Finney, and like doc- 
trines, prayers, and efforts seemed to produce like 
fruits among this people. 

My precious wife, whose soul was melted with love 
and longings for the weeping natives, felt that to 
doubt it was the work of the Spirit, was to grieve 
the Holy Ghost and to provoke Him to depart 
from us. 

On some occasions there were physical demonstra- 
tions which commanded attention. Among the serious 
and anxious inquirers who came to our house by day 
and by night, there were individuals who, while list- 
ening to a very plain and kind conversation, would 
begin to tremble and soon fall helpless to the floor. 
At one time, when I was holding a series of outdoor 
meetings in a populous part of Puna, a remarkable 
manifestation of this kind occurred. A very large 
concourse were seated on the grass, and I was stand- 
ing in the center preaching "Repentance toward 
God and faith in the Lord Jesus." Of a sudden, a 
man who had been gazing with intense interest at the 
preacher, burst out in a fervent prayer, with stream- 
ing tears, saying : " Lord, have mercy on me ; I am 
dead in sin." His weeping was so loud, and his 
3 



50 Life in Haivaii. 

trembling so great, that the whole congregation was 
moved as by a common sympathy. Many wept 
aloud, and many commenced praying together. The 
scene was such as I had never before witnessed. I 
stood dumb in the midst of this weeping, wailing, 
praying multitude, not being able to make myself 
heard for about twenty minutes. When the noise 
was hushed, I continued my address with words of 
caution, lest they should feel that this kind of dem- 
onstration atoned for their sins, and rendered them 
acceptable before God. I assured them that all the 
Lord required was godly sorrow for the past, present 
faith in Christ, and henceforth faithful, filial, and cheer- 
ful obedience. A calm came over the multitude, and 
we felt that '"the Lord was there." 

A young man came once into our meeting to make 
sport slyly. Trying to make the young men around 
him laugh during prayer, he fell as senseless as a log 
upon the ground and was carried out of the house. 
It was some time before his consciousness could be re- 
stored. He became sober, confessed his sins, and in 
due time united with the church. 

Similar manifestations were seen in other places, 
but everywhere the people were warned against hy- 
pocrisy, and against trusting in such demonstrations. 
They were told that the Lord looks at the heart, and 
that " repentance toward God and faith in the Lord 
Jesus " were the unchangeable conditions of pardon 



Volcanic Waves. 51 



and salvation, and that their future lives of obedience 
or of disobedience would prove or disprove their 
spiritual life, as " The tree is known by its fruit." 

But God visited the people in judgment as well as 
in mercy. On the 7th of November, 1837, at the 
hour of evening prayers, we were startled by a heavy 
thud, and a sudden jar of the earth. The sound was 
like the fall of some vast body upon the beach, and 
in a few seconds a noise of mingled voices rising for 
a mile along the shore thrilled us like the wail of 
doom. Instantly this was followed by a like wail 
from all the native houses around us. I immediately 
ran down to the sea, where a scene of wild ruin was 
spread out before me. The sea, moved by an unseen 
hand, had all on a sudden risen in a gigantic wave, and 
this wave, rushing in with the speed of a race-horse, 
had fallen upon the shore, sweeping everything not 
more than fifteen or twenty feet above high-water 
mark into indiscriminate ruin. Houses, furniture, cala- 
bashes, fuel, timber, canoes, food, clothing, every- 
thing floated wild upon the flood. About two hun- 
dred people, from the old man and woman of three- 
score years and ten, to the new-born infant, stripped 
of their earthly all, were struggling in the tumultu- 
ous waves. So sudden and unexpected was the ca- 
tastrophe, that the people along the shore were liter- 
ally " eating and drinking/' and they " knew not, 
until the flood came and swept them all away." The 



52 Life in Hawaii. 

harbor was full of strugglers calling for help, while 
frantic parents and children, wives and husbands ran 
to and fro along the beach, calling for their lost ones. 
As wave after wave came in and retired, the strugglers 
were brought near the shore, where the more vigor- 
ous landed with desperate efforts and the weaker and 
exhausted were carried back upon the retreating wave, 
some to sink and rise no more till the noise of judg- 
ment wakes them. Twelve individuals were picked 
up while drifting out of the bay by the boats of the 
Admiral Cockburn, an English whaler then in port. 
For a time the captain of the ship feared the loss of 
his vessel, but as the oscillating waves grew weaker 
and weaker, he lowered all his boats and went in search 
of those who were floating off upon the current. Had 
this catastrophe occurred at midnight when all were 
asleep, hundreds of lives would undoubtedly have 
been lost. Through the great mercy of God, only 
thirteen were drowned. 

This event, falling as it did like a bolt of thunder 
from a clear sky, greatly impressed the people. It 
was as the voice of God speaking to them out of 
heaven, " Be ye also ready." 

Day after day we buried the dead, as they were 
found washed up upon the beach, or thrown upon 
the rocky shores far from the harbor. We fed, com- 
forted, and clothed the living, and God brought light 
out of darkness, joy out of grief, and life out of 



The English Captain. 53 

death. Our meetings were more and more crowded, 
and hopeful converts were multiplied. 

Even the English captain, who spent his nights in 
our family, and his intelligent and courteous clerk, pro- 
fessed to give themselves to the Lord while with us, 
and both kneeling with us at the family altar, silently 
united in our morning and evening devotions, or cheer- 
fully led in prayer. The captain was a large and power- 
ful man, bronzed by wind and wave and scorching sun. 
He had been long upon the deep, had suffered ship- 
wreck, had been unable to reach his London home for 
more than three years, and had been given up as dead 
by all his friends. Under this belief his wife had married 
another, when he surprised her by his return, and she 
gave him joy by returning to him. He gave us an in- 
teresting account of his eventful life, and confessed 
that he had enjoyed very few religious privileges and 
had thought little of God or the salvation of his soul. 
He now accepted the offer of life through Christ, 
with the spirit of a little child. 

On returning to the ship he immediately told his 
officers and crew that he should drink no more in- 
toxicants, swear no more, and chase whales no more 
on the Lord's day, but, on the contrary, observe the 
Sabbath and have religious services on that holy 
day. 

Though thousands professed to have passed from 
death unto life during the years 1836-7, only a small 



54 Life in Hawaii. 

proportion of these had been received into the church. 
The largest numbers were gathered in during 1838-9. 
I had kept a faithful note-book in my pocket, and in 
all my personal conversations with the people, by 
night and by day, at home and in my oft-repeated 
tours, I had noted down, unobserved, the names of in- 
dividuals apparently sincere and true converts. Over 
these persons I kept watch, though unconsciously to 
themselves ; and thus their life and conversation were 
made the subjects of vigilant observation. After the 
lapse of three, six, nine, or twelve months, as the case 
might be, selections were made from the list of names 
for examination. Some were found to have gone back 
to their old sins; others wer.e stupid, or gave but 
doubtful evidence of conversion, while many had stood 
fast and run well. Most of those who seemed hope- 
fully converted spent several months at the central 
station before their union with the church. Here they 
were watched over and instructed from week to week 
and from day to day, with anxious and unceasing 
care. They were sifted and re-sifted with scrutiny, 
and with every effort to take the precious from the 
vile. The church and the world, friends and enemies, 
we're called upon and solemnly charged to testify, 
without concealment or palliation, if they knew aught 
against any of the candidates. 

From my pocket list of about three thousand, 1,705 
were selected to be baptized and received to the com- 



The Ingathering. 55 

munion of the church on the first Sabbath of July, 
1838. The selection was made, not because a thou- 
sand and more of others were to be rejected, or that 
a large proportion of them did not appear as well as 
those received, but because the numbers were too 
large for our faith, and might stagger the faith of oth- 
ers. The admission of many was deferred for the 
more full development of their character, while they 
were to be watched over, guided, and fed as sheep of 
the Great Shepherd. 

The 1,705 persons selected had all been gathered at 
the station some time before the day appointed for 
their reception. They had been divided into classes, 
according to the villages whence they came, and 
put in charge of class leaders, who were instructed to 
watch over and teach them. 

The memorable morning came arrayed in glory. A 
purer sky, a brighter sun, a serener atmosphere, a more 
silvery sea, and a more brilliant and charming land- 
scape could not be desired. The very heavens over 
us and the earth around us seemed to smile. The 
hour came ; during the time of preparation the house 
was kept clear of all but the actors. With the roll 
in hand, the leaders of the classes were called in with 
their companies of candidates in the order of all the 
villages ; first of Hilo district, then of Puna, and last 
of Kau. From my roll the names in the first class 
were called one by one, and I saw each individual seat- 



56 Life in Hawaii. 

ed against the wall, and so of the second, and thus on 
until the first row was formed. Thus, row after row 
was extended the whole length of the house, leaving 
spaces for one to pass between these lines. After every 
name had been called, and every individual recognized 
and seated, all the former members of the church were 
called in and seated on the opposite side of the build- 
ing, and the remaining space given to as many as could 
be seated. 

All being thus prepared, we had singing and prayer, 
then a word of explanation on the rite of baptism, 
with exhortation. After this with a basin of water, 
I passed back and forth between the lines, sprink- 
ling each individual until all were baptized. Standing 
in the center of the congregation of the baptized, I pro- 
nounced the words, " I baptize you all into the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost. Amen." 

The scene was one of solemn and tender interest, 
surpassing anything of the kind I had ever witnessed. 
All heads were bowed, and tears fell. All was hushed 
except sobs and breathing. 

The nature of the Lord's supper and the reasons for 
its observance were then explained, and the bread and 
cup distributed among the communicants. 

This was a day long to be remembered. Its im- 
pressions were deep, tender, and abiding; and up to 
the present time, the surviving veterans of that period 



Results. 



57 



look back to it as the day of days in the history of 
the Hilo church. 

At this period the ecclesiastical year of the mission 
began on the 1st of May. The reports of the church- 
es were made up to the 30th of April, 1838. I find 
in the records of Hilo church the 

Number received during year ending April 30, 1838, 639 

1839, 5,244 

1840, 1,499 
During the following decade ending in 1850, the num- 
ber received was 2,348 

And for the decade ending in i860, 1,445 

The whole number received on profession to 1880, . 12,113 

by letter, 812 

" " " dismissed, . 3»546 

" " " deceased, 8,190 

" " " of marriages, 3,048 

" " " of children baptized, 4,370 

Those received from the district of Kau, when 
there was no settled pastor there, were afterward 
dismissed to the church which was organized and 
placed under the care of the Rev. J. D. Paris. 

In order to keep every member under my eye, and 
to find ready access to each, I prepared a book ruled 
thus : 







S 


13 




ft « 


3 


8.H 

6 


1838. 

July 1 

Sept. 2 

1837. 


Kapule. . . . 
Lonoakeawe 


Waiakea . 
it 


To Hana, 
June, 1840 






Mar. 1841. 


Abenera, Joane 











58 Life in Hawaii. 

By simple signs males and females were distin- 
guished. This is important here, because the same 
name is often used interchangeably for the sexes. 

For many years I always took this book with me 
in my tours, and called the roll of the church mem- 
bers in every village along the line. When any one 
did not answer the roll-call, I made inquiry why. 
If dead, I marked the date ; if sick, visited him or 
her, if time would allow ; if absent on duty, accepted 
the fact ; if supposed to be doubting or backsliding, 
sent for or visited him ; if gone to another part of the 
island, or to another island, I inquired if the absence 
would be short or perpetual, and noted the facts of 
whatever kind. 

Our young men often shipped for whaling voyages. 
Noting these cases, I would watch for their return, 
and then visit them, inquiring whether they chased 
whales on the Lord's day, used intoxicants, or violated 
other Christian rules of morality ; and I dealt with 
them as each case demanded. 

Some church members removed to other districts 
or islands without letters of dismissal. The names 
of these I used to send to the pastors whither they 
had gone, requesting them to look after these absent 
ones, and receive them to their communion, report- 
ing to me. 

As hundreds of our people went from place to 
place to visit friends or on business, to learn whither 



Church Discipline. 59 

they had gone, to follow them with letters, and to 
see them properly cared for, became an important 
but arduous labor. The Hawaiians are not nomads, 
but they are fond of moving, and curiosity or the 
call of friends leads very many of them to wander 
over many parts of the group. During my annual 
visits to Honolulu, on occasion of the General Meet- 
ing of the Mission held there in May or June, I often 
gave public notices in the churches that I would meet 
any of my people who were there, at a given hour on 
Sunday, and a company of fifty to a hundred would 
assemble at the hour appointed. 

Our Confession of Faith is the Bible, and each 
individual in the Hilo church promises, with his hand 
on the Sacred Book, to abstain from all that is for- 
bidden, and to obey all that is commanded therein. 
We advise them to abstain from the use of tobacco, 
ava (a narcotic root), and from all intoxicants. Like 
all savages, they were almost to a man addicted to 
the use of these articles, especially of tobacco, and 
we supposed that it would be next to impossible to 
persuade them to abandon these habits. But the 
Lord came to our help. All over Hilo and Puna, 
during that mighty work of the Spirit, multitudes 
pulled up all their tobacco plants and cast them into 
the sea or into pits, and thousands of pipes were 
broken upon the rocks or burned, and thousands of 
habitual smokers abandoned the habit at once and 



60 Life in Hawaii. 

forever. I have been surprised at the resolution and 
self-denial of old men and women who had long in- 
dulged in smoking, in thus breaking short off. Some, 
however, went back to the old habit, and some used 
the article secretly. I have never excommunicated 
or suspended members for this indulgence, but have 
taught them, by precept and example, a better way. 
Mr. and Mrs. Lyman, and nearly every missionary 
brother and sister on the islands, were united with 
me in this matter. 

In all cases we found that those who would not 
relinquish smoking were the more troublesome mem- 
bers of the church, giving more doubtful evidence of 
love to Christ, and oftener running into other excesses 
which called for church discipline. 



V. 

Mrs. Coan's School for Girls — Common Schools — 
Medical Work — The Sailors' Church — Sunday 
Work — Visits of Foreign Vessels — The U. S. 
Exploring Expedition. 

IN the year 1838, Mrs. Coan opened a boarding- 
school for native girls. This was to be self-sup- 
porting in part, but to receive such aid in labor, 
food, kapas, mats, etc., as parents and friends chose 
to render. 

As soon as the plan was made known to the church 
and people they rallied cheerfully, went into the 
woods, hauled down timber by hand, and with great 
promptness erected and thatched a comfortable build- 
ing on our premises. A floor was laid over about one- 
fourth of the building, on which was placed a table, 
and a few chairs for the teacher and visitors. 

On each side of the remaining three-fourths of the 
house was a row of little open cells, partitioned from 
each other by mats, and furnished with beds of straw 
or dried grass, and with mats and kapas for coverings. 
In the space between these rows of compartments was 
a plain table, with seats, bowls, spoons, etc., for the 
pupils. The number of little girls in the school was 

(61) 



62 Life in Hawaii. 

twenty, their ages from seven to ten years. Arrange- 
ments were made with the people living in and near 
the town, that they should bring in weekly supplies 
of foo.d and fish for the girls. Taro, potatoes, ba- 
nanas, and fish were then abundant and cheap, and 
the people provided willingly. At length they set 
apart a parcel of ground and appointed each monthly 
concert day as a time when they would cultivate 
that ground and thus supply the food necessary for 
the school. 

Little gifts of money were sometimes made by 
strangers who came to Hilo, by oflficers of whale- 
ships and men-of-war ; or a piece of print or brown 
cotton was given, and thus the real wants of the 
school were supplied. No application to the A. B. 
C. F. M., or to any Board, or to an individual was 
ever made for help. Mrs. Coan toiled faithfully 
from day to day, in spite of pressing family cares, 
teaching her charges the rudiments of necessary book 
knowledge, and of singing, sewing, washing and iron- 
ing, gardening, and other things. Most of the girls 
became members of the Hilo church, and we had 
hope that all were the children of God. The school 
was sustained about eight years, and sent out a com- 
pany of girls, who, for the most part, did honor to 
their instructions, and who were distinguished among 
their companions for neatness, skill, industry, and 
piety. As domestic cares increased and her strength 



Schools and Patients. 6$ 



was weakened, the faithful teacher at length felt com- 
pelled to give up her charge. 

For a time I had the supervision of the common 
schools, numbering not less than fifty, and containing 
about 2,000 pupils. My duties were to furnish them 
with books, slates, and pencils ; to visit them on 
my tours, to attend their examinations, and make a 
tabular record of numbers, readers, writers, etc. For 
want of writing-paper or a full supply of slates, the 
children would prepare square pieces of the green ba- 
nana-leaf, and with a wooden style or slate-pencil 
form letters and thus learn to write. 

At the central station and on all my tours I was 
thronged with the sick and afflicted multitudes, or 
their friends, begging for remedies for almost all kinds 
of diseases. So numerous were the applications for 
medicines, and so varied and sad were the spectacles 
of disease, that it became a task for the skill and the 
whole time of a well-read and experienced physician. 
I had a fair collection of medical books, and these 
were consulted as much as was possible in connec- 
tion with my other labors, but my regret was that I 
could not visit the sick as I wished, or pay them the 
attention they needed. 

When at last, in 1849, a good physician, Charles 
H. Wetmore, was sent to our relief, my heart re- 
joiced. I immediately resigned my medical functions, 
turned over my medicine-chest and drugs to him, 



64 Life in Hawaii. 

and blessed the Lord that I was not doomed to wan- 
der " forty years in the wilderness of powders and 
pills." This kind and faithful doctor with his ex- 
cellent wife have been our nearest neighbors ever 
since their arrival. 

I was also greatly relieved of the care of the com- 
mon schools by Mr. and Mrs. Abner Wilcox, lay mis- 
sionaries, who came to us as teachers and remained 
in Hilo several years. 

Previous to our arrival, when whale-ships and other 
vessels were in the harbor of Hilo, the officers and 
crews received kind attentions from the missionaries 
at this station. The Reverends Joseph Goodrich, Jon- 
athan Green, Sheldon Dibble, and D. B. Lyman, and 
their wives, had entertained many of these sons of 
the deep, given them reading-matter, and sought to 
promote their spiritual interests. 

We were at once ready to help in this important 
work. Masters, officers, and sailors were made wel- 
come to our house ; books and tracts were provided 
for them to take to sea, and a religious service was 
held for them every Sunday afternoon. 

For many years this service was held in one of the 
houses of the missionaries. Finally, we fitted up the 
old stone-building, our first home, for a bethel, and 
added a library of about 200 volumes, with peri- 
odicals. 

My regular services on the Sabbath were : a Sunday- 



Foreign Vessels. 65 

school at 9 A.M.; preaching at 10.30; at 12 M. a 
meeting for inquirers ; at I P.M. preaching ; and at 3 
P.M. preaching in English to seamen, and English-speak- 
ing residents and visitors. When ships were in port 
we often had a full house, and not a few hearers pro- 
fessed a determination to forsake all sin and to live 
godly lives. Of some we afterward learned, either 
by their own letters or otherwise, that they had kept 
their vows and united with Christian churches, and 
that some had become ministers of the Gospel. 

Several masters and officers gave up Sabbath 
whaling, and instead held religious meetings with 
their men on the Lord's day. 

Very precious friendships were formed with many 
of these seamen, which friendships continue to this 
day. We have found noble specimens, not only of 
generosity and fine natural talent among this class 
of men, but also many choice Christians. 

Not a few national ships have visited Hilo, from 
the tender or schooner up to the sloop-of-war, the 
frigate and the great seventy-four-gun line-of-bat- 
tle ship, as the Collingwood and Ohio. 

The largest of these ships represented the United 
States of America, the next Great Britain, then France, 
Russia, Germany, and Denmark. We have had more 
than seventy -five of these war -ships of different 
nationalities in our harbor, and of all classes of 
vessels about 4,000. The approximate number of 



66 Life in Hawaii. 

seamen who have visited Hilo during our residence 
here we put at 40,000. 

In this labor for seamen I have been led to corre- 
spond with the American Bible, Tract, Peace, Tem- 
perance, and Seamen's Friend Societies, and have ob- 
tained Bibles and tracts in the English, French, Ger- 
man, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, and 
Chinese languages ; which with many thousands of 
tracts have been distributed among these vessels. 
Some of this " bread cast upon the waters " has been 
found again according to the promise. 

In 1840, Charles Wilkes, commander of the United 
States Exploring Expedition, arrived in Hilo bay 
in the flag-ship Vinccnnes. Here with an admirable 
corps of scientists he spent three months in ex- 
plorations, measurements, observations, etc. Parties 
of officers and scientific gentlemen were detailed to 
visit different parts of the island, some to ascend the 
mountains, and some to survey the shore, making col- 
lections, drawings, and observations in all the branch- 
es of the natural history of the Islands. The com- 
mander called for 300 young and vigorous men to take 
him, with the materials of a wooden house and all 
the apparatus of a large observatory, with food, fuel, 
water, beds, etc., to the summit of Mauna Loa, where 
he and his attendants were to spend twenty or thirty 
days in taking observations. 

Other parties required large numbers of men to 



The U, S. Exploring Expedition. 67 

carry baggage, instruments, etc., and to act as guides 
and assistants in making surveys and collecting a large 
amount of specimens. 

Parties of natives thus employed needed to be re- 
cruited often on account of fatigue and exhaustion, 
and for the lack of shoes and warm clothing to endure 
the hard travel and the rains, cold, and snows of the 
mountains. Some died of cold. It is supposed that 
about one thousand of our strongest men were brought 
into this service, and with small pay, during these 
three months. Some parties of men were required to 
travel and work on Sunday as on other days. All 
this had a demoralizing effect upon the poor na- 
tives. They had been accustomed to rest from all 
physical toil, and to worship on the Lord's day. Our 
congregations were much reduced in numbers. There 
was no little murmuring among the people at this new 
state of things, and for years the moral tone of the 
church and community could not be fully restored to 
its cheerful and normal state. 

This was a trial of faith, and a fan to winnow the 
church, but most of our Christians stood fast, and al- 
though it checked the progress of the revival, the loss 
to the church was less than might have been feared. 

The visit of the expedition to Hilo afforded us an 
opportunity to form an acquaintance with many 
worthy gentlemen, several of whom we met again in the 
United States in 1 870-1. Among these we met and 



6S Life in Hawaii. 

received as a very welcome guest the then youthful 
James D. Dana, one of the scientific corps, now so 
distinguished in various departments of natural 
science, and honored as a Christian philosopher. The 
friendship then formed has been increased by years 
and can never wane. 



VI. 

Mauna Loa — Kilauea — The Eruption of 1840 — The 
River of Fire — It reaches the Sea at Nanawale— 
Lava Chimneys — Destruction of a Village. 

IT is widely known that the Hawaiian Islands are 
all of volcanic origin. They are the summits of 
mountains whose bases are far down in the sea. Their 
structure is plutonic, and the marks of fire are every- 
where visible. They are scarred with hundreds and 
hundreds of pit and cone craters, most of which are 
extinct. 

Mauna Loa is a vast volcanic dome, subject to igne- 
ous eruptions at any time, either from its extended 
summit or sides. Prof. Dana estimates that " there 
is enough rock material in Mauna Loa to make one 
hundred and twenty-five Vesuviuses."* About mid- 
way from its summit to the sea on the eastern flank 
of the mountain and on a nearly level plain is Kilauea, 
the largest known active crater in the world. The 
brink of this crater is 4,440 feet above the sea level ; 
its depth varies from 700 to 1,200 feet, and its longer 



* Am. Journal of Science, May, 1859, p. 415. 

(69) 



yo Life in Hawaii, 

diameter is about three miles. Grand eruptions have 
issued from it in past ages, covering hundreds of 
square miles in different parts of Puna and Kau. 

The first eruption from Kilauea which occurred 
after my arrival in Hilo, began on the 30th of May, 
1840. To my regret, I was then absent at the an- 
nual General Meeting of this mission in Honolulu, 
a meeting which I have always attended. I there- 
fore record a portion of the facts as given by the 
natives and foreigners who saw the eruption, adding 
my own observations on a visit to the scene after my 
return from Honolulu. 

There had been no grand eruption from this crater 
for the previous seventeen years, so that the lavas in 
the crater had risen several hundred feet, and the 
action had, at times, been terrific. 

The volcano is thirty miles by road from Hilo, and 
under favorable conditions of the atmosphere we 
could see the splendid light by night, and the white 
cloudy pillar of steam by day. It was reported that, 
for several days before the outburst, the whole vast 
floor of the crater was in a state of intense ebullition ; 
the seething waves rolling, surging, and dashing 
against the adamantine walls, and shaking down large 
rocks into the fiery abyss below. It was even stated 
that the heat was so intense, and the surges so in- 
fernal, that travelers near the upper rim of the crater 
left the path on account of the heat, and for fear of 



A Subterranean Fire-Stream. 71 

the falling of the precipice over which the trail lay, 
and passed at a considerable distance from the crater. 
Kilauea is about half in Puna and half in Kau, and 
all travelers going from Kau to Hilo by the inland 
road pass the very brink of this crater. 

The eruption was first noticed by the people of 
Puna, who were living only twenty miles from it. 
The light appeared at first like a highland jungle on 
fire ; and so it was, for the fiery river found vent some 
1,200 to 1,500 feet below the rim of Kilauea, and 
flowing subterraneously in a N.E. direction, for about 
four miles, marking its course by rending the super- 
incumbent strata and throwing up light puffs of sul- 
phurous steam, it broke ground in the bottom of a 
wooded crater about 500 feet deep, consuming the 
shrubs, vines, and grasses, and leaving a smouldering 
mass instead. 

The great stream forced its way underground in a 
wild and wooded region for two miles more, when it 
again threw up a jet of fire and sulphur, covering 
about an acre. At this point, a large amount of 
brilliant sulphur crystals continued to be formed for 
several years. 

Only a little further on, and an old wooded cone 
was rent with fissures several feet wide, and about 
half an acre of burning lava spouted up, consuming 
the trees and jungle. This crevasse emitted scalding 
vapor for twenty-five years. 



J2 Life in Hawaii. 

Onward went the burning river, deep underground, 
some six miles more, when the earth was rent again 
with an enormous fissure, and floods of devouring 
fire were poured out, consuming the forest and spread- 
ing over perhaps fifty acres. And still the passage 
seaward was underground for about another six 
miles, when it broke out in a terrific flood and rolled 
and surged along henceforth upon the surface, con- 
tracting to half a mile, or expanding to two miles in 
width, and moving from half a mile to five miles an 
hour, according to the angle of descent and the in- 
equalities and obstructions of the surface, until it 
poured over the perpendicular sea-wall, about thirty 
feet high, in a sheet of burning fusion only a little 
less than one mile wide. 

This was on June 3, 1840. It reached the sea on 
the fifth day after the light was first seen on the 
highlands, and at the distance of only seventeen and 
a half miles from Hilo. As this grand cataract of 
fire poured over the basaltic sea-wall, the sights and 
sounds were said to be indescribable. Two mighty 
antagonistic forces were in conflict. The sea boiled 
and raged as with infernal fury, while the burning 
flood continued to pour into the troubled waves by 
night and by day for three weeks. Dense clouds of 
steam rolled up heavenward, veiling sun and stars, 
and so covering the lava flow that objects could not 
be seen from one margin to the other. All commu- 






The Lava Reaches the Sea. J$ 

nication between the northern and southern portions 
of Puna was cut off for more than a month. 

The waters of the sea were heated for twenty miles 
along the coast, and multitudes of fishes were killed 
by the heat and the sulphurous gases, and were seen 
floating upon the waves. 

During this flow, the sea-line along the whole 
breadth of the fire-stream was pushed out many 
yards by the solidified lavas, and three tufaceous 
cones were raised in the water where ships could once 
sail. They were formed of lava-sand made by the 
shivering of the mineral flood coming in contact with 
the sea, and standing in a line 200, 300, and 400 feet 
above the water, with their bases deep down in the 
sea. These dunes have been greatly reduced by the 
waves thundering at their bases and the winds and 
storms beating upon their summits. One of them, 
indeed, is now entirely obliterated. 

During this eruption most of the foreign residents 
in Hilo, and hundreds of Hawaiians of Puna and Hi- 
lo, visited the scene where the igneous river plunged 
into the sea, and they described it as fearfully grand 
and awe-inspiring. 

Imagine the Mississippi converted into liquid fire 
of the consistency of fused iron, and moving onward 
sometimes rapidly, sometimes sluggishly ; now widen- 
ing into a lake, and anon rushing through a narrow 
gorge, breaking its way through mighty forests and 
4 



74 Life in Hawaii. 

ancient solitudes, and you will get some idea of the 
spectacle here exhibited. 

When the eruption was at its height night was turn- 
ed into day in all this region. The light rose and 
spread like morning upon the mountains, and its glare 
was seen on the opposite side of the island. It was 
also visible for more than a hundred miles at sea ; and 
at the distance of forty miles fine print could be read 
at midnight. 

The brilliancy of the light was said to be like a 
blazing firmament, and the scene one of unrivaled 
sublimity. 

No lives were lost during this eruption. The 
stream passed under and over an almost uninhabited 
desert. A few small hamlets were consumed, and a 
few patches of taro, potatoes, and bananas were de- 
stroyed, but the people walked off with their calabash- 
es, kapas, and other chattels to seek shelter and food 
elsewhere. During the eruption some of the people 
of Puna spent much of their time in prayer and relig- 
ious meetings, some fled in consternation, and others 
wandered along the margin of the lava stream, at a 
safe distance, marking with idle curiosity its progress, 
while others still pursued their daily avocations with- 
in a mile of the fiery river, as quietly as if nothing 
strange had occurred. They ate, drank, bought, sold, 
planted, builded, slept, and waked apparently indiffer- 
ent to the roar of consuming forests, the sight of de- 



The Lava Stream. 75 

vouring fire, the startling detonations, the hissing of 
escaping steam, the rending of gigantic rocks, the 
raging and crashing of lava waves, and the bellowings, 
the murmurings, the unearthly mutterings coming up 
from the burning abyss. They went quietly on in sight 
of the rain of ashes, sand, and fiery scintillations, gaz- 
ing vacantly on the fearful and ever-varying appear- 
ance of the atmosphere illuminated by the eruption, 
the sudden rising of lofty pillars of flame, the upward 
curling of ten thousand columns of. smoke, and their 
majestic gyrations in dingy, lurid, or parti-colored 
clouds. 

While the stream was flowing it might be approach- 
ed within a few yards on the windward side, while at 
the leeward no one could live within a great distance 
on account of the smoke, the impregnation of the at- 
mosphere with pungent and deadly gases, and the 
fiery showers that fell on all around, destroying all 
vegetable life. 

Sometimes the intense heat of the stream would 
cause large boulders and rocks to explode with great 
detonations, and sometimes lateral branches of the 
stream would push out into some fissure, or work into 
a subterranean gallery, until they met with some ob- 
stacle, when the accumulating fusion with its heat, its 
gases, and its pressure would lift up the superincum- 
bent mass of rock into a dome, or, sundering it from 
its surroundings, bear it off on its burning bosom like 



J6 Life in Hawaii. 

a raft upon the water. A foreigner told me that 
while he was standing on a rocky hillock, some dis- 
tance from the stream, gazing with rapt interest upon 
its movements, he felt himself rising with the ground 
on which he stood. Startled by the motion, he leaped 
from the rock, when in a few minutes fire burst out 
from the place where he had been. 

On returning from Honolulu I soon started for Pu- 
na, with arrangements to make as thorough explora- 
tions and observations on this remarkable eruption as 
my time would allow. I spent nearly two days on 
the stream. It was solidified and mostly cooled, yet 
hot and steaming in many places. I went up the 
flow to where it burst out in volume and breadth 
from its subterranean chambers and continued on the 
surface to the sea, a distance of about twelve miles, 
making the entire length of the stream about thirty 
miles. In a letter published in the Missionary Herald 
of July, 1 841, I called it forty miles, but later meas- 
urements have led me to correct this and some other 
statements made on first sight. 

I found the place of final outburst a scene where 
terrific energy had been exerted. Yawning crevasses 
were opened, the rocks were rent, and the forests 
consumed ; the molten flood had raged and swirled 
and been thrown high into the air,. and there had been 
a display of titanic fury which must have been appal- 
ling at the time of the outbreak. 



The Lava in the Forest. jj 

In pursuing its course the stream sometimes 
plunged into caverns and deep depressions, and some- 
times it struck hills which separated it into two chan- 
nels, which uniting again after having passed the ob- 
struction, left islands of varied sizes with trees scorch- 
ed and blasted with the heat and gases. 

Along the central line of the stream its depth could 
not be measured accurately, for there was no trace of 
tree or ancient rock or floor. All was a vast bed -of 
fresh, smouldering lava. On the margins, however, 
where the strata were thinner, I was able to measure 
with great accuracy. In passing through forests, while 
the depth and heat of the middle of the stream con- 
sumed everything, on the margins thousands of green 
trees were cut down gradually by the fusion around 
their trunks ; but this was done so slowly that the 
surface of the stream solidified before the trees fell, 
and on falling upon the hot and hardened crust, the 
tops and limbs were only partly consumed, but all 
were charred, and the rows and heaps were so thick 
and entangled as to form chevaux-de-frise quite im- 
passable in some places. But the numerous holes left 
in the hot lava bed by the gradual reduction of the 
trunks to ashes afforded the means of measuring the 
depth of the flow. With a long pole I was enabled 
to measure from a depth of five to twenty-five feet. 
Some of these trunk-moulds were as smooth as the 
calibre of a cannon. Some of the holes were still so 



7 8 Life in Hawaii. 

hot at the bottom as to set my pole on fire in one 
minute. 

I had seen fearful ragings and heard what seemed 
the wails of infernal beings in the great crater of Ki- 
lauea, but I had never before seen the amazing effects 
of a great exterior eruption of lava, and I returned 
from this weary exploration, after a missionary tour 
through Puna, with a deepened sense of the terrible 
dynamics of the fiery abyss over which we treacL 

Since then, in crossing and re-crossing the wild 
highlands of my parish I have found in the consumed 
openings of forests a new class of volcanic monuments, 
consisting in numerous stacks of lava chimneys stand- 
ing apart on the floor of an ancient flow. These 
chimneys measure from five to twenty-five feet in 
height, and five to ten feet in diameter. I gazed at 
them at first sight as the work of human art, not 
knowing that they were cylindrical. On climbing 
them I found that they were hollow, and that they 
were as clearly tree moulds as the holes I had meas- 
ured in the flow of 1840. 

Then came the question, how were they formed? 
The solution soon came — that an ancient eruption had 
passed through this forest at the height of many feet 
above the present surface, the fiery river surrounding 
large trees, but while it consumed all smaller growths, 
the waves subsided to their present level before these 
trunks were fully consumed, thus leaving partially. 



Obdurate Villagers. 79 

cooled envelopes of lava adhering to them. These 
moulds or chimneys now stand as monuments of the 
volcanic action of an unknown age. 

Here I leave this subject for a while, purposing to 
return to it. 

In early years Hawaiian hospitality was generous, 
and on my tours among the natives I found them 
ready to provide liberally, according -to their ability, 
for me and the helpers who accompanied me. To 
this good feeling there was one notable exception. 
There was a small village about eighteen miles from 
Hilo, where I had taken special pains to tame and 
Christianize the people. They rarely provided even a 
cup of cold water until I arrived and begged them to 
go to a somewhat distant spring to fetch it ; and for this 
I would have to wait two hours, perhaps, while parched 
with thirst, burning with the heat of a midday sun, 
and weary with walking over long miles of scorching 
lava fields. On one occasion, returning from a circuit 
tour of more than a hundred miles, I stopped at this 
place and preached and conversed with the villagers. 
I had been absent from home over two weeks and had 
consumed all the food I had taken with me, except a 
little stale biscuit. I had nothing for the two good 
men, members of the Hilo church, who had traveled 
all the distance with me. Evening closed in, and I 
asked the occupants of the house and some of the 
neighbors who had come in if they could not furnish 



80 Life in Hawaii. 

my two companions with a little food before they 
slept. The answer was, " We have no food." " Per- 
haps you can give them a potato, a kalo, a breadfruit, 
or a cocoanut." They answered as before, " We have 
nothing to eat, not even for ourselves." So, weary 
and hungry, we lay down upon the mats for the night, 
and when we were supposed to be asleep, we heard 
the family under the cocoanut trees eating heartily, 
and conversing in an undertone that we might not 
hear them. 

After years of kind instructions with the hope of 
leading them to appreciate the love of God and the 
value of a true Christianity, they remained the same 
hardened beings. My patience and desire to lead 
them to " the Lamb of God " continued ; but thinking 
of what the Saviour said to His disciples about 
" shaking off the dust of their feet," I resolved on a 
trial, hoping to win them into a better way. 

In a meeting when " the hearers but not the 'doers 
of the word " were assembled, I said to them, " These 
three years have I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, 
and find none. I will, therefore, leave you to reflect 
on what you have heard from the Lord ; and, when- 
ever you repent and desire to hear the Gospel again, 
send for me and I will hasten to you with joy." But 
they never sent. Time passed on and down came the 
fiery torrent of which I have written, and covered the 
village, consuming the cocoa-palm grove, the potato 
and banana patches, with the thatched meeting-house 



The Scourge. 8 1 

and school-house, leaving nothing but a blackened 
field of lava. The people took their little all and fled. 

They settled near the borders of the lava stream, 
and in the year 1853 the small-pox fell among them 
(the only place in Puna where the disease went), and 
a large part of them died. There was no physician 
within eighteen miles, and the poor creatures knew 
not what to do. Some bathed in the sea to cool the 
burning heat, and perished, and some crawled out into 
the jungle and there died, and were torn and partly 
eaten by swine. They had fled from the devouring 
fire only to meet, if possible, a more painful doom, 
and it reminds'one of the words of Jeremiah uttered 
against the stubborn Moabites : " He that fleeth from 
the fear shall fall into the pit, and he that getteth up 
out of the pit shall be taken in the snare." 

That the small-pox should find them and no one 
else in Puna seems remarkable ; but these are the 
facts. A number of these villagers were visiting 
in Honolulu when the fearful disease raged there. 
They thought to escape it by returning home, but 
unknown to them the destroyer had already seized 
them and they perished in their wild, secluded jungle. 

I visited this scene of sorrow and desolation, gath- 
ered the stricken remnant of the sufferers, spoke 
words of condolence, and encouraged them to come 
with their sins and sorrows to the Saviour. They 
seemed subdued, welcomed their pastor, and were, I 
trust, " saved yet so as by fire." 
4* ' 



VII. 

More Church- Building — Commodore Jones's Visit — 
Progress of Conversions — The Sacraments under 
New Conditions. 

OF church buildings we had at one time not less 
than fifty, and of school-houses sixty or more. 
These were all built by the free will of the people, act- 
ing under no outward constraint. Some of these houses 
would accommodate 1,000 persons, others 500, 300, and 
150, according to the population for which they were 
erected. They were, of course, built in native style, 
on posts set in the ground, with rafters fastened with 
cords, and the whole thatched with the leaf of the 
pandanus, the sugar-cane, or dried grass. They were 
frail, needing rethatching once in three to five years, 
and rebuilding after about ten years. They were 
usually well-kept, and with open doors and holes for 
windows, they were light and airy. 

In this list I do not include the great buildings at 
Hilo. 

A mighty wind having prostrated our large meet- 
ing-house, we commenced, during the winter of 1 840-1, 
to collect materials for our first framed building. All 
the men who had axes went into the highland forest 

to fell trees and hew timber. When a large number 
(82) 






Dragging Timber. 8^ 



j 



of pieces were ready, hundreds of willing men and 
women, provided with ropes made of the bark of the 
hibiscus, with light upper garments, and with leggins 
of the Adam and Eve style, such as never feared mud 
and water, went to bring down these timbers. Ar- 
ranged by a captain in two lines, with drag-ropes in 
hand, ready to obey the command of their chosen 
leader, they stood waiting his order. At length comes 
the command, " Grasp the ropes ; bow the head ; blis- 
ter the hand ; go ; sweat ! " And away they rush, 
through mud and jungle, over rocks and streams, 
shouting merrily, and singing to measure. Then 
comes the order, " Halt, drop drag-ropes, rest!" This 
is repeated at longer or shorter intervals according to 
the state of the ground. 

I often went up to the woods, on foot of course, 
and grasped the rope, and hauled with the rest to en- 
courage and keep them in heart. We had no oxen 
or horses in those days, for the days were primitive, 
and the work was pioneer work. The trees, the jun- 
gle, the mud, the streams, and the lava-fields were all 
primordial. 

When the materials were brought. together, we em- 
ployed a Chinese carpenter at a reasonable price, to 
frame and raise the building, all his pay to be in 
trade, for " the golden age " had not yet dawned on 
Hawaii. The natives, men and women, soon covered 
the rough frame with thatching. There was no floor 



84 Life til Haivaii. 

but the earth, and the only windows were holes about 
three feet square left in the thatching on the sides 
and ends. This was the first framed church edifice 
built in Hilo, and in this building, capable of seating 
about 2,000 people, we first welcomed Commodore Ap 
Catesby Jones, of the frigate United States, with his 
officers and brass band. The courteous commodore 
and his chaplain consented to deliver each an address 
of congratulation and encouragement to the people 
for their ready acceptance of the Gospel, and for their 
progress in Christian civilization. He alluded to a 
former visit of his to Honolulu by order of the 
United States Government, to investigate certain 
complaints made by a class of foreign residents 
against the American missionaries, stating that on a 
patient and careful hearing of the parties, the mis- 
sionaries came out triumphantly, and their abusers 
were put to shame. 

Our people at this time had never heard the music 
of a brass band, and the commodore kindly gave 
them a treat. After playing several sacred songs 
which delighted the natives beyond all music they 
had before heard, the band, at a signal from the com- 
modore, struck up " Hail Columbia." An electric 
thrill rushed through the great congregation, and all 
sprang to their feet in amazement and delight. Since 
then they have become familiar with the music of the 
United States', the English and French navies. 



A Church Dedication, 85 

Perhaps the most perfect band we have heard in 
Hilo was that of the Duke of Edinburgh, who visited 
us in the steam frigate Galatea in 1869. 

When our first framed church building became old 
and dilapidated, we decided on replacing it with an 
edifice of stone and mortar. But after a year's hard 
toil in bringing stones on men's shoulders, and after 
having dug a trench some six feet deep for the foun- 
dations without coming to the bed-rock, we, by ami- 
cable agreement, dismissed our mason and engaged 
two carpenters. 

The corner-stone was laid November 14, 1857, 
and the building was dedicated on the 8th of April, 
1859. The material was good, and the workman- 
ship faithful and satisfactory. The whole cost was 
$13,000. 

It was then the finest church edifice on the islands. 
On the day of the dedication, there was a debt on 
the house of some $600, and it was our hope and 
purpose to cancel the debt on that day. But the 
day was stormy, the paths muddy, and the rivers 
were without bridges. Things looked dark, but we 
were happily surprised to see the people flocking in 
from all points until the house was crowded to its 
utmost capacity. 

Prayers and a song of praise were offered, but we 
had resolved, by the help of God, not to dedicate 
the house until the debt was paid to the last far- 



86 Life in Hawaii. 

thing. So the people were called on by divisions, ac- 
cording to their villages, to come forward with their 
offerings ; and this was done with such promptness, 
such order, and such quietness that we soon counted 
and declared a contribution of over $800. When the 
result was announced, a shout of joy went up to 
heaven. 

The debt was paid, the house was dedicated, $200 
were left in the treasury, and the people went home 
rejoicing and praising the Lord. On the 27th a con- 
tribution of more than $400 was taken, making our 
dedication offerings $1,239. Our treasury for the 
meeting-house has never been empty, though we 
have expended several thousand dollars more in pur- 
chasing a large bell, in painting and repairing the 
house, and in keeping it and the grounds neat and in 
good condition. 

It was an affecting scene to see the old and de- 
crepit, the poor widow, and the droves of little chil- 
dren come forward with their gifts which they had 
been collecting and saving for months, and offering 
them with such cheerful gladness to the Lord. 

In 1868 an awful earthquake tore in pieces stone 
walls and stone houses, and rent the earth in various 
parts of Hilo, Puna, and Kau. Had we built accord- 
ing to our original plan and agreement with the 
mason, " our holy and beautiful house " would have 
become a heap of rubbish, and our hearts would have 



Bettered Lives. &j 



sunk within us with sorrow. How true that "a man's 
heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his 
steps." 

It was my habit to get all the help that could be 
obtained from converts, and this was much. As the 
company of disciples increased, " they went every- 
where preaching the word." The Lord ordained 
them, not man. In every hamlet and village there 
were found some who were moved by the Holy 
Ghost, and to whom the Spirit gave utterance ; and 
it was joyfully true that " where the Spirit of the 
Lord was, there was liberty," not to dispute and 
wrangle, not to speak vain and foolish things, not to 
lie and deceive, but to utter the truth in love, with- 
out the shackles of form and superstition, but with 
the freedom granted by Christ. 

How true the promise, " My people shall be willing 
in the day of my power." Willing to give up their 
sins, their enmity, their vile practices, their pipes, 
their ava, and all their intoxicants ; to forgive and 
be forgiven ; to return every man to the wife he had 
abused, and every wife to the husband she had for- 
saken ; to pay their old debts ; to labor with their 
hands for the supply of their physical wants ; to see 
that their children were in school, in religious meet- 
ings ; to see that prisons were emptied and churches 
filled, and that the poor, the sick, the blind, and the 
lame were not forgotten ; to see that the call of love 



88 Life in Hawaii. 

and the offers of life were heard by all. The objects 
called for laborers, and they were ready at call. 
Sometimes ten, twenty, or forty men were sent out, 
two and two, through all Puna and Hilo, into all 
highways, hedges, jungles, and valleys, to " seek and 
to save the lost," the sick, the ignorant, the stupid, 
the timid, or the " remnant of the giants " in idolatry. 
And they were drawn out by hundreds into the light 
of the Gospel and the love of the Saviour. There 
was no retreat among the hills or in the forests where 
these helpers did not come, and no place where I 
did not precede, accompany, or follow them. The 
women also toiled earnestly for souls. They met, 
prayed, read the commission of the Great Prince, and 
went out two and two into all the villages, exhorting, 
persuading, weeping, and praying, and their influence 
was wonderful for good. They were taught by the 
Word and the Spirit, and understood their work. 
With these helpers every village became a guarded 
citadel of the Lord, and there were few lurking-places 
for the enemy, no dark passages by which he might 
make approaches to the camp of the saints. 

So far as we could learn, there was not a house or a 
cabin in all these districts where the voice of morning 
and evening prayer was not heard ; and in most places 
Scripture lessons and hymns were rehearsed, and ef- 
forts, often very rude and inartistic, were made to 
sing the praises of God. 



Prayers of Faith. 89 

Previous to the great revival I had been pained at 
the cold and formal prayers of the natives. All had 
seemed mechanical and heartless, and in grief I had 
said, " I do not feel satisfied with this praying, it seems 
but a thoughtless and unfeeling rehearsal of a lesson." 
But when the Spirit fell upon the people, all this was 
changed. Some of the most unlettered and weak be- 
came mighty and prevailing wrestlers like the patriarch 
Jacob. " The feeble among them were like David, 
and the house of David as the angel of the Lord." 
They took God at His word, their faith was simple and 
childlike, unspoiled by tradition or vain philosophy. 
They went " boldly to the throne of grace," and yet 
with eyes melted with tears, and hearts yearning with 
love for souls. 

Often have I seen a whole assembly moved to tears 
and tenderness by the prayers and wrestlings of one 
man. They plead the promises with no apparent 
shadow of a doubt, and the answer often came speed- 
ily. Is it not recorded for the assurance of faith that 
" Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet 
speaking I will hear " ? They were praying with melt- 
ing fervor for the Spirit, and He came, sometimes like 
the dew of Hermon or the gentle rain, and sometimes 
" like a rushing mighty wind," filling the house with 
sobbing and with outcries for mercy. 

Controversies among Christians always sadden me. 
Our warfare is against sin and Satan ; and Heaven's 



90 Life in Hawaii, 

" sacramental host " should never fall out by the way, 
or spend an hour in their conflict with Hell in fighting 
with one another. 

Grasping and defending vital truths, and allowing 
kind and courteous discussions of outward forms, the 
whole Church of Christ should clasp hands and march 
shoulder to shoulder against the common foe. The 
many and different church organizations, with their 
external rites, rules, and preferences, never offend me 
where there is " the unity of the spirit in the bonds of 
peace." All Christians are bound by the supreme law 
of heaven to love one another, not to bite and devour, 
nor to indulge in "envy and strife." 

I believe in the beautiful rite of baptism, not as es- 
sential to salvation, but as a sign and seal of faith in 
Christ. 

I believe that the mode and the amount of water 
are indifferent, and that every thinking man is at 
liberty to choose for himself so as to satisfy his own 
conscience before God, whether by immersion, pouring, 
or sprinkling ; nor do I believe that the Bible warrants 
dogmatism, division, or non-communion on this sub- 
ject. For myself I prefer sprinkling, not so much 
from the many discussions I have heard, or the argu- 
ments I have read on the subject, as from the facts in 
my experience. 

Granting that this rite is designed to be universal 
as is the Gospel, Matt, xxviii. 19, I have often found 



Some Necessities cf Baptism. 91 

it impossible to baptize by immersion. I have found 
in parts of Hawaii, one, two, and five miles from the 
sea, and as far from any pool of water sufficient to im- 
merse even the head, men, women, and children so 
old or so sick that they could not be carried to any 
water fountain to be immersed ; some ready to die, 
and begging me with tears to baptize them and ad- 
minister to them the emblems of the body and blood 
of the Lord Jesus. They accepted Christ with good 
evidence of faith and love, and welcomed His messen- 
ger with tears of joy and gratitude. 

And now let me ask with Peter, " Can any man for- 
bid water that these should not be baptized ? " 

Similar considerations apply to the communion of 
the Lord's supper. I have been in situations where 
it seemed a duty and a privilege to administer this 
sacrament, but could get neither bread nor wine. Of 
course this led to reflection. Shall I omit the sacra- 
ment ? Shall it be postponed for months, with the 
probability that some of these aged and wasting forms 
will be laid in the dust within a few days or weeks ? 
Which is of the greater importance, the ordinance or 
the articles used to symbolize and call to remembrance 
the death of the Lord Jesus? Do not the food we 
eat and the water we drink sustain our mortal bodies, 
and does not faith in the Saviour's broken body and 
shed blood give life to our souls ? The argument 
seemed to me logical and conclusive. And on further 



92 Life in Hawaii 

reflection that the bread we now use differs from that 
used when the ordinance was first instituted, and that 
much of the wine of this age is a poisoned mixture, 
the conclusion was further strengthened that neither 
our bread nor our wine was essential to our accept- 
able observance of the Lord's supper. 

We use bread at the Hilo churches, and for the 
cup a preparation without alcohol or any poisonous 
drug; but in making my distant tours we used the 
food and drink which sustains the life of the people, 
whether bread-fruit, taro, or potato, and water. 



VIII. 

Arrival of Catholic Missionaries — Admiral de Trome* 
lin — Proselytism — Controversies with the Priests — > 
Arrival of the Mormons — The Reformed Catholics 
— Bishop Staley — Lord George Paulet. 

^PHE pioneer Catholic missionaries arrived in 1827, 

"*■ and were rejected by the rulers. 

This company was led by Rev. John Alexius Au- 
gustine Bachelot, who was commissioned by Pope Leo 
XII. as "Apostolic Prefect of the Sandwich Islands.'' 
They landed without permission and refused to de- 
part, under the delusion that the Pope as the Vice- 
gerent of Heaven had dominion over all earthly prin- 
cipalities and powers, as if the earth were his foot- 
stool. Then followed a long struggle, in which arro- 
gance, intrigue, and duplicity were freely exercised, 
and which conflict has continued until this day. One 
step of aggression followed another until the power 
of the French Government was invoked by the 
priests, and in 1839 Captain Laplace, commander 
of the French frigate V Arthnise, appeared and 
made charges and demands which, it was then sup- 
posed, meant a seizure of the Islands. But the Lord 

spared us. 

(93; 



94 Life in Hawaii. 

Failing in this attempt, the French sloojp-of-war 
Embuscadc, Captain Mallet, appeared in 1842 with 
fresh charges and demands, threatening the king and 
the life of the kingdom. Fortunately royal com- 
missioners had been dispatched to England and 
France with plenary powers to settle all difficulties 
amicably with these Governments, especially with 
the French. Of course Captain Mallet had nothing 
to do, as the case had been appealed to the supreme 
power. 

In August, 1849, tne French frigate La Poarsiii- 
vante, Admiral de Tromelin, came into Hilo with a 
French bishop and consul on board, who made a 
pleasant and polite call at our house. From here the 
Admiral sailed for Honolulu, where he brought new 
charges of grievances because the French priests and 
the Catholic religion had been dishonored. 

He went so far as to land his marines, and with 
martial music and waving flag, enter the fort at Hon- 
olulu, throw down the guns from the walls, fill up an 
old well, break up a few calabashes, etc. The fort 
had no garrison, the gates were wide open, and there 
being no resistance, it is reported that the gallant 
Admiral said to his officers and marines : " Let 
us go on board ; they won't fight, and there is 
no glory in this." I relate the story as it was told 
me. 

Rumors were afloat that the United States Com- 



Catholic Proselytism. 95 

missioner then in Honolulu had agreed, under the 
earnest request of the King and nobles, to run up the 
United States flag as a signal of a protectorate so soon 
as a hostile gun was fired from the frigate. It is 
supposed that the Admiral felt that he had gone too 
far, and could not grasp the prize, and therefore with- 
drew from the bloodless conflict, since which time we 
have had no more threatening from the French Gov- 
ernment, but have had to meet what looks like Jesuit- 
ical tactics on all sides. 

I have here given only a hasty sketch of the intro- 
duction of Catholicism into these Islands, and for more 
detailed information I will refer the reader to the 
histories of the Rev. Hiram Bingham and James J. 
Jarves, Esq. These histories were written mostly at 
the times and place of the troubles, and they present 
a fair and truthful statement of the facts. Mr. Bing- 
ham's history also affords a very full and interesting 
view of the mission of the A. B. C. F. M. from the 
year 1820 to 1845. 

Of this persistent aggression of the Catholics, Hilo 
and Puna have had their full share. Priests were 
early stationed in these and the adjoining districts, 
and they at once took a bold and defiant stand. 
These emissaries confronted me everywhere. I often 
heard of them as having gone just before me on my 
tours. They appointed meetings near by my ap- 
pointments, and at the same hour ; they even came 



g6 Life in Hazvaii. 

to my congregations in anger to command some of 
their claimed neophytes to leave the house. 

Everywhere they perplexed and vexed the simple 
natives by telling our best and most tried Christians 
that they were outside the true Church and on their 
way to perdition. They taught the people that the 
Protestants were all heretics and deceivers, that their 
ordinations were invalid, their pretended marriages 
adultery, and their teachings delusive. 

They also appealed to the selfish and baser feelings 
of the natives to carry their point, encouraging them 
in the cultivation and use of tobacco, and assuring 
them that if they would turn Catholics they would 
never be called on to give to the priests, to assist 
in building churches, to contribute at monthly con- 
certs, or be taxed in any way to support religion. 
Thus they gained weak followers. But when the 
priests changed their policy and began to call on 
their proselytes for help in building churches and 
supporting their teachers, many of the natives saw 
the duplicity and left them at once. 

When a church member was under discipline or 
had been suspended for notorious sins,* he was often 
sought and received into the Catholic church. Liars, 
thieves, drunkards, adulterers, were flattered with 
the belief that all would come out well with them 
if they were only in the true Chiirch ! 

This " daubing with untempered mortar," and cry- 



• Catholic Proselytism. 97 

ing " Peace, peace, when there was no peace," was a 
bold and impudent opposition to sound church dis- 
cipline, encouraging delinquents to harden themselves 
in sin. It became " a refuge of lies," a hiding-place 
of transgressors, a snare to catch souls. 

This determined and unrelenting attack of the 
papal powers upon the church of Hilo and Puna 
greatly increased the cares and labors of the pastor. 
I delivered more than thirty public lectures on the 
history, character, and predictions of the papacy, be- 
sides continuous and unwearied private efforts with 
those who were perplexed by the sophistry of the 
priests. And I had the comfort of knowing that 
many of my people became more than a match for 
the priests in faith and argument. 

A priest one day assailed one of the native Chris- 
tians by asserting that all the American missionaries 
came to the Islands to get money. 

u Ah ! " said the native, " you believe that, do you ? " 
" Most certainly," said the priest. " Well, your be- 
lief is most marvelous. We Hawaiians think that 
those who are in search of gold and silver avoid such 
poor people as we are and go where money is plenty. 
It is most strange that you should believe that Mr. 
Bingham, Mr. Thurston, and others came here to get 
money when there was no money in this country. 
Do you think them such fools ? " 

Another good old native was accosted one day 
5 



98 Life in Hawaii. 

thus: "Are you one of Mr. Coan's disciples?" to 
which he replied, " I am one of the disciples of 
Christ." "What is the true Church?" asked the 
priest. " Why do you priests cast the second com- 
mandment out of your catechism?" In a flurry — 
" The second commandment, the second command- 
ment ! I was not talking about the second command- 
ment. I asked you wJiat is the true Church ? " Good 
old Paul replied again : " And why do you cast the 
second commandment out of your catechism ? " 
" What, what ! what do you mean — I tell you I am 
not talking about the second commandment, but 
about the true CJiurch" Steady to his point, Paul 
coolly and emphatically repeated again, " Why do you 
cast the second commandment out of your catechism ? " 
Turning on his heels the Jesuit went off exclaiming, 
" Paul, you are an old stubborn fool." But he never 
assailed him again. 

Another priest meeting Barnabas saluted him with 
much politeness, and offering a little flattery, began 
to express great desire that they both might escape 
delusion and find the one and only way to heaven. 
Then he began with the usual opening question : 
" What is the true Church ? " Barnabas calmly re- 
plied, " The true Church of God is composed of all 
true believers who love and obey the Lord Jesus, 
of every age and name and nation on earth and in 
heaven." This comprehensive truth began to ruffle 



A Passage at Arms. 99 

the priest, and he tried to parry the point of the 
Spirit's sword by syllogistic logic, saying, " There 
can be only one true Church." Barnabas saw the 
premises, and anticipating the reasoning and conclu- 
sion, he cut the matter short. " I have answered 
your question, and now, as you and I both have 
enough to do, I bid you good-morning " — and as he 
left the priest he heard him murmuring, " Poor de- 
luded and stubborn heretic." 

One of their most audacious acts remains to be re- 
corded. I had once visited Mr. Paris, at Kau, on the 
occasion of transferring those members of my church 
from that district to the care of Mr. Paris. 

On Monday I was returning toward Hilo. When 
near the center of Kau, as I was passing a Catholic 
church under the foot-hills of Mauna Loa, I was 
stopped by about two hundred Catholics, headed by 
a French priest, who challenged me then and there to 
a debate. This was in a narrow pass along the road 
which was so completely obstructed by the collected 
Catholics as to prevent my passing on. The challenge 
I respectfully declined, and as it was late in the after- 
noon, and I had some eight or ten miles of rough 
road to travel before I slept, I begged the mob to 
open the road, and suffer me to pass peacefully on 
my way. This the priest refused, commanding the 
people to keep the passage blocked, and with lifted 
hands and clenched fists, he declared that this Coan, 



ioo Life in Hawaii. 

this opposer of the Catholics, should never pass until 
he had accepted the challenge for debate. Again 
and again I calmly declined, and asked for a passage 
through the crowd. The priest became furious and 
his whole frame trembled with excitement, while the 
people around him seemed fierce as wolves. 

Not being able to proceed, I dismounted and tried 
to elbow my way through, leading my horse. The 
priest kept right before me, with hands quivering, 
and voice roaring : " Who is the head of the Church? 
Who is the head of the Church ? " For a time I made 
no reply, but quietly tried to work my way along, till 
at last I spoke out in full and clear tones, " The Lord 
Jesus Christ, He is the Head of the Church." Im- 
mediately the priest roared out at the top of his voice, 
" That is a lie, Peter is the head of the Church." 

Several faithful natives were with me, watching 
with intense interest the scene. When this assertion 
of Peter's headship thundered from the priest, one 
of the men named Sampson, a bold and powerful 
man, could hold in no longer, and with the voice of a 
giant, and the arm of Samson of old, he cried out, 
" Clear the road, and let my teacher pass," and with 
the word came the act ; with his strong arms he scat- 
tered the mob to the right and left, and I followed 
on through the passage thus opened. As I mounted 
my horse and rode quietly on, the howling crowd 
shouted : " He flees ! he flees ! He is a coward." 



The Mormons in Hilo, 101 

Some of the leaders of this mob afterward left the 
Catholics, and repented with tears. 

This priest, recognizing me upon the road one day 
afterward, at once turned into the bushes, rather than 
to meet me. I never met him again, and it was not 
many months before the strong young man was dead. 

Not many years after the introduction of the papal 
priests came a drove of Mormon emissaries. These 
spread themselves in squads all over the group like 
the frogs of Egypt. 

They made an early descent upon Hilo. At first 
they employed flattering words.- They called at once 
on me, asserted their divine commission, affirmed the 
heavenly origin of their order, enlarged on the new 
and sure revelations made to Joe Smith and his suc- 
cessors, the prophets, and invited me to join them, as- 
suring me that I would then see the full-orbed light 
of truth, whereas I had only seen its faint dawn. " You 
are a good man," said they, " and have done what you 
could ; but we have come to teach you the way of 
God more perfectly, and if you will unite with us and 
come into this new light, your people will all soon be 
born again, i. e., be dipped in water, and then by the 
laying on of hands they will receive the Holy Ghost, 
and all the signs will follow." I asked, " What signs ? " 
They replied, " Speaking with ■ tongues, healing the 
sick, and all miracles." I then said, " Let us take up 
the ' signs ' in order, and see if you Mormons have 



102 Life in Hawaii. 

them. Can you cast out devils?" "Yes." " But, if 
testimony is true, many of your people, like other sin- 
ners, act as if the devil were still in them. ' They 
shall speak with tongues.' Can you do it ? " " Oh, 
yes, we can at Utah." " And why not here, where 
you need the gift more? And why do you ask for a 
teacher of the native language ? Do you believe you 
could handle poisonous serpents, and drink deadly 
things with impunity?" "We can heal the sick." 
"And so can I. But do not Mormons die?" "Oh, 
yes." " Can you raise the dead ? " " The Mormons 
at Salt Lake can do it." " Well, if you will go with 
me to a fresh grave near by, and raise a dead body to 
life, I will join you to-day." This silenced them on 
miracles and signs. And when I produced my copy 
of " The Book of Mormon," and showed them I knew 
more than they about the doctrines of the faith to 
which they were trying to make me a proselyte, they 
were confounded, and went away despairing of my 
becoming a convert. 

But for years numbers of this deluded sect traveled 
over these districts, using all their powers of persua- 
sion, not excepting lying and 'deceit, to draw the peo- 
ple after them. When once they succeeded in mak- 
ing a disciple they would quarter themselves in his 
house until he had cooked the last pig, goat, or fowl, 
and until his taro, potatoes, and bananas were gone, 
all the while boasting of their great love, and compar- 



Mormon Tactics, 103 



ing themselves with the American missionaries, who 
they said came here to get salaries and to oppress the 
people. 

I met the Mormons often on my tours, and had 
abundant evidence from repeated conversations, and 
from the testimony of the most reliable members of 
the church, of their ignorance, bigotry, impudence, 
and guile. 

Finding that they could not prevail by flattery, they 
assumed a bold front, denounced the American mis- 
sionaries as false pretenders, deceivers, and blind 
guides, without baptism, without ordination, and with- 
out credentials from heaven. One of their number 
came into our congregation on a Sabbath, and when 
I arose at the close of the service to dismiss the as- 
sembly, the Mormon arose, and with a loud voice 
gave notice that he would preach immediately. The 
great congregation moved quietly toward the church 
door, when he placed himself in the door-way to pre- 
vent their egress, demanding in loud, boisterous lan- 
guage that they all remain and hear " the true gospel." 
Steadily the crowd moved to the door, and press- 
ing the arrogant intruder aside, returned to their 
homes. 

Though numbers of low characters at first turned 
after the Mormons, the sect soon ran out here, and 
now they have neither church, or school, or meeting- 
house in all Hilo and Puna. 



io4 Life in Hawaii, 

The entrance of Bishop Staley into the Hawaiiar 
Islands with his corps of priests and sisters has gone 
into history. Receiving the title of " Lord Bishop 
of Honolulu," he contemplated the supplanting of the 
American missionaries, the conversion of the foreign 
residents and natives to his faith, and the establish- 
ment of one grand Episcopal Diocese over all the isl- 
ands of the group. 

The whole scheme was planned, and he soon began 
to move with his clergy for its execution. 

Having established several stations in Hawaii and 
other islands of the Archipelago, he came to Hilo with 
one of his clergy. 

Ignoring practically the church which had long been 
established here under its present pastor, and all who 
had labored to gather and to guide the flock, he walk- 
ed boldly in as if by divine right, appointed his meet- 
ings to preach in the English and Hawaiian languages, 
and announced that he would at once establish two 
congregations, one of Hawaiians, and one of English- 
speaking residents. 

In the further pursuance of . his scheme, he appoint- 
ed two boards of trustees or agents, one composed of 
members of my church, and one of foreign residents. 
These agents he instructed and empowered to open 
subscriptions, collect funds, proselyte the people, and 
make all necessary arrangements for buildings and for 
gathering congregations. He then presented the 



The Lord Bishop of Honolulu. 105 

appointed curate of Hilo, and engaged board and lodg- 
ing for him. 

All this was done as if by royal authority, and with- 
out condescending to confer with or to know the in- 
cumbent pastor and his associate laborers. The ar- 
rangements having been completed, his lordship re- 
turned to Honolulu, taking the curate-elect with him 
to get his baggage, with the promise that he should 
return immediately to exercise his priestly functions 
for the cure of souls, and as the only authenticated 
messenger of Heaven to the benighted and perishing 
heathen of Hilo. They came, they saw, they went, 
but they did not soon return. 

It was found that there was one factor in the plot 
which the shrewd bishop had overlooked, and that 
was the will of the people of Hilo. They had some- 
how imbibed the doctrine of " Free Agency," which 
implies will and choice and personality. 

The bishop's theory was smooth and perfect, but 
its practical execution was so clogged by friction that 
it failed of success. Letters followed Bishop Staley 
to Honolulu stating that neither of his boards had 
secured a proselyte or a dollar, that his agents did not 
act, and that all things were going on in the old way. 
This was a damper surely, and it might be an extin- 
guisher. 

But the bishop rallied and appeared again in Hilo; 
appointed meetings as before, and wished to know 



106 Life in Hawaii. 

the reasons for the inactivity of his Hilo agents. His 
efforts were of no avail. The people could not see 
what allegiance they owed to a lord and bishop cre- 
ated in London, or why they should forsake their 
" own and their fathers' friends," to whom under God 
they owed all they knew of civilization and of Chris- 
tian truth. 

The Reformed Catholics have never established a 
church in Hilo, and it is not known that they have a 
single convert here. 

We wish to be liberal and to labor in loving har- 
mony with all who love our Lord and Saviour, and who 
pray heartily for His coming and kingdom, but we 
pity all who are exclusive, and who vainly set them- 
selves up as the only true Church. 

During the year of 1843, the English corvette 
Carysfort, Lord George Paulet commanding, made 
two visits to Hilo. 

This young Briton had seized the reins of the 
Hawaiian Government, hauled down the national 
flag, dethroned the king, and established what he 
called a Provisional Government. The country was 
in confused agitation, and a dark cloud veiled our 
political sky. 

When he arrived he went in person to our prison, 
commanding the keeper to open the doors, discharge 
the prisoners, and give him the keys. The guilty 
offenders and criminals feeling that their hour of 



Lord George Paulet. 107 

triumph had come, rushed out jubilant, and went 
whither they desired. 

Lord George soon called on us, and introduced 
himself as the savior of the country. He was a 
young, jolly, and sanguine man, of pleasant manners 
and very sociable. He seemed at ease, yet self-con- 
scious. "Well," said he, "you are now under the 
British flag; how do you like it?" 

" Well, sir, we choose to be under the Hawaiian." 

" No, no ! but the English Government is strong, 
and your protection is sure." "True, but we desire 
that this weak and small people should be free and 
independent. It is a right which should not be 
taken from them without just cause." 

" Well, well, but you would rather be under the 
flag of England than of France?" "That may be, 
but we choose the flag of the country for which 
we have labored." "You could not live under the 
Hawaiian flag. The French were determined to take 
your islands as they took Tahiti. I knew it, and I 
hastened hither before them and saved the country, 
and you ought to thank me." 

All this was spoken in great good humor and self- 
satisfaction, and his lordship shook hands and bowed 
a pleasant good-morning. 

He returned to Honolulu, and our native police 
went immediately in search of the prisoners he had 
set free and returned them to the prisons. Hearing of 



108 Life in Hawaii. 

this, and that the same thing had occurred in La 
haina, he hastened back with all canvas spread, land- 
ed with body-guard and side arms, went to the prison 
and opened again its doors, setting the inmates free. 
He then inquired for the native judge who had coun- 
termanded his orders by returning the prisoners to 
jail, and hastened in person to his house, as the na- 
tives said, " ' piha i ka huhu" filled with wrath. 

But the wide-awake judge having had a hint of his 
coming, and not caring to end his judgeship in prison, 
stole out at the back door and could not be found. 

The commander, to hold the fort, organized a police 
mostly of foreigners of a certain class, some of whom 
had, I think, seen the inside of a prison, and others 
who might be fair candidates for such a place, and 
giving them strict orders to see that his commands 
were executed, he left Hilo for the second and last 
time. Our new police were greatly magnified by 
their office, and were somewhat haughty and imperi- 
ous during their brief authority. 

Lord George appointed his officers, civil and mili- 
tary, over all the Islands, enlisted and drilled soldiers 
among the natives and foreigners, and taught them 
rebellion against their lawful sovereign. 

After five months of "torment," the time of the 
reign of the locusts in the Apocalypse, the flag-ship 
of the good Admiral Thomas arrived in Honolulu. 
The English flag was removed from all its staves, the 



The Liberation. 109 

Hawaiian was raised in all our ports, and the com- 
mander of the proud Carysfort was ordered to salute 
the royal signal he had dishonored. To this day it 
waves and flutters over an independent kingdom, and 
the Carysfort with her lordly commander has been 
seen no more in our waters. 



IX. 

Isolation of the Mission Families — Sufferings on the 
Inter-Island Voyages — Their Dangers — Parting 
with our Children — School Discussions and Festi- 
vals — Native Preachers — Cheerful Givers — Changes 
and Improvements. 

IN the early years of the mission, the trials of sepa- 
ration were often severe. Hawaii was not only 
far from all the outer world, but our islands were 
separated one from another by wide and windy chan- 
nels, with no regular and safe packets, and no postal 
arrangements, or regular means of communication. 

Add to this, many parts of the islands were so 
broken by ravines, by precipices, and dangerous 
streams, and so widely sundered by broad tracts of 
lava, without house, or pool of water to refresh the 
weary and thirsty traveler, and without roads withal, 
that social intercourse was impossible without great 
toil and suffering. 

As to beloved friends and kindred in the far-off 
fatherland, it seemed like an age before we could 
speak to them and receive answers. 

I think it was eighteen months before we received 

answers to our first letters sent from Hilo to the 
(no) 



Island Remoteness. ill 

United States, a period long enough for revolutions 
among the nations as well as in families. 

All our flour, rice, sugar, molasses, and many other 
articles of food, with clothing, furniture, medicines, 
etc., came in sailing vessels around Cape Horn, a 
voyage of four to six months, so that our news be- 
came old and our provisions stale before they reached 
us, while our stationery might be exhausted, our 
medicines expended, our flour mouldy and full of 
worms, before the new supplies arrived. Many a 
time have we been obliged to break up our barrel of 
hardened flour with an axe, or chisel and mallet. 

But after all our inter-island communication was 
often our more severe trial. A few old schooners, 
leaky and slow, mostly owned by native chiefs, 
floated about, sometimes lying becalmed under the 
lee of an island for a whole week, in a burning sun, 
with sails lazily flapping, boom swinging from side to 
side, and gaff mournfully squeaking aloft. 

These vessels were usually officered and manned 
by indolent and unskilful natives, who made dis- 
patch, cleanliness, safety, and comfort no factors in a 
voyage. They would often be four and even six 
weeks in making a trip from Honolulu to Hilo and 
back, a total distance of some 600 miles. They knew 
nothing of the motto, " Time is money." So long as. 
they were supplied with fish and poi, all was well. 
They would sometimes lash the helm while they went 



112 Life t7i Hawaii. 

to eat, then lie down and sleep. We have often 
found our vessel in this condition at midnight, cap- 
tain and all hands fast asleep, and the schooner left to 
the control of wind and wave, and without a lamp 
burning on board. In addition some vessels were 
without a single boat for help in the hour of peril. 

The cabins being small and filthy, the missionaries 
slept on deck, each family providing its own food and 
blankets, and all exposed to wind, heat, storm, and 
drenching waves which often broke upon the deck. 
Upon a schooner of forty to sixty tons, there might 
be one hundred natives with their dogs and pigs, 
stoutly contesting deck-space with them ; and often 
fifty members of missionary families, parents and 
children together. These were the families on Molo- 
kai and Maui, with, in many cases, those of the several 
stations on Hawaii. The crowd was distressing, and 
the sickness and suffering can never be told. Mothers 
with four or five children, including a tender nursling, 
would lie miserably during the hot days under a burn- 
ing sun, and by night in the rain, or wet with the dash- 
ing waves, pallid and wan, with children crying for 
food, or retching with seasickness. I have seen some 
of these frail women with their pale children brought 
to land, exhausted, upon the backs of natives, carried 
to their homes on litters, and laid upon couches to 
be nourished till their strength returned. 

Does any one ask why these delicate mothers left 
their homes to suffer thus nigh unto death ? 



Sorrowful Voyages. 113 

The answer is this. For the isolated mission fami- 
lies to visit one another at will, was out of the ques- 
tion. Once a year, provision such as described was 
made to bring all together in Honolulu, in what was 
styled " General Meeting." So strong was the social 
and Christian instinct, that nearly every parent and 
child would brave the dangers and submit to the 
sufferings of these terrible passages, rather than deny 
the intense heart-longings for personal intercourse 
with their fellow-laborers "in the kingdom and pa- 
tience of Jesus Christ." 

We all went with our households and were received 
cordially by our dear brethren and sisters in Honolu- 
lu, where in consultation on the things pertaining to 
the mission work, in prayer and praise and in social 
intercourse, we usually spent three or four weeks. 
Daily meetings were often held with the children, when 
with united endeavors we sought to lead them to 
Him who has said : " Suffer little children to come 
unto me." And many of those little ones dated their 
deepest religious impressions from those meetings. 

Through the providential care of Him who was 
with us, no lives were lost in all these dangerous 
voyages of the early members of the mission. Two 
of these leaky, ill-managed vessels were, as we 
suppose, sunk in the night while attempting to cross 
the channel from Maui to Hawaii, with about two 
hundred natives on board, eighty of whom were my 



114 Life in Hawaii. 

church members. Not a spar, not a box nor a bucket 
from these vessels has been seen from that day to this. 

It is probable that the helm was lashed, and that 
captain and all hands were asleep when a squall struck 
the sails, capsized the vessel, and all were plunged 
without warning into the dark abyss of waters. 

On one of these lost vessels my second daughter 
had engaged passage to return from Honolulu to Hilo, 
in company with our neighbor, Judge Austin, and 
his wife and children. By a sudden impulse and just 
before the embarkation, the party changed their minds 
and took passage on another schooner bound to the 
western coast of Hawaii, where they were safely land- 
ed, making their way thence to Hilo by land, a dis- 
tance of about seventy-five miles. Had they taken 
the ill-fated schooner, we should never have seen our 
daughter and our neighbors again on earth. 

Another trial of painful character has been borne 
by the missionaries in the sending of their tender 
offspring away from their island home to the father- 
land. Surrounded by the low and vulgar throng 
of early mission days, with no good schools, and 
loaded with cares and labors for the native race, 
most of the missionaries have felt it a duty to their 
children to seek for them an asylum in a land of 
schools and churches and Christian civilization. The 
struggle of parting has sometimes been agonizing 
on both sides. Often the child would plead piteousiy 



The Severing of Families. 115 

to be suffered to remain, while at the same time the 
mother's heart yearned over her darling one ; but a 
stern sense of duty nerved her to the sacrifice, and 
with a last kiss of farewell she would commit her 
son or daughter to the care of the ship-master, and 
turn away with a crushed heart to spend sleepless 
hours in prayers and tears. 

Ah ! how many of these mothers remember these 
heart-struggles with a melting agony, and how many 
of those scalding tears the Father of Mercies has 
known, with the prayers that wrung them out ! 

Our two elder children remained at their island 
home until they reached an age when the thought 
of separation was less cruel. They then made the 
voyage around Cape Horn under the kind care of 
Capt. James Willis and his excellent wife. 

Later, our second daughter and son were sent to 
the United States under favorable circumstances. Our 
youngest son has returned, and lives near the old 
homestead. 

Once or twice a year the school teachers and lead- 
ing members of the church were called together in 
Hilo for the discussion of important questions, and 
for prayer. 

This assembly numbered one hundred, and often 
more. They came as delegates or representatives from 
all the villages, either as volunteers or as chosen by 
the people. When assembled for deliberation a scribe 



1 16 Life in Hawaii. 

was elected, and a book of records kept, in which min- 
utes of all important acts were entered. The duration of 
such meetings varied from three days to a week, accord- 
ing to the importance and interest of the discussions. 

These representatives we call Lunas, overseers. 
None of them were ordained as deacons or elders, but 
their office work was much like that of class-leaders 
in the Methodist church. They reported the state of 
the schools and of the church members. A list of 
overtures was prepared, embracing topics for consid- 
eration on a great variety of subjects pertaining to 
"The life that now is and to that which is to come." 
The meetings were often pervaded with a delightful 
spirit of tenderness and Christian harmony. Prayers 
were fervent, and there were exhibitions of native elo- 
quence which were marvelous. 

These were excellent occasions for the pastor to in- 
struct the leading minds of his flock, not only in the 
rules of order pertaining to deliberative bodies, but in 
the duties of parental, filial, fraternal, matrimonial, 
social, economical, civil, and spiritual life. The range 
of subjects was wide, but simple and practical, and the 
fruits were apparent. Many beside the delegates came 
in, day after day, to these meetings, both of men and 
women. 

These were sometimes local and sometimes general. 
When the schools of the two districts assembled at 
the central station, I think we have had two thou- 



School Festivals, 117 

sand in the exhibition. Usually the schools would be 
dressed in uniforms, each choosing for itself the color 
which their tastes dictated. All floated flags and ban- 
ners of a tasteful style, and all marched to music, vo- 
cal or instrumental, and often prepared by themselves 
or their teachers. Some made flutes of the bamboo, 
and some composed sweet songs with simple but 
pleasing music. 

Their marchings and simple evolutions, with songs 
and fluttering flags, attracted the attention of all, and 
many came out to witness the gala picture. 

The marching over, the children were arranged 
under a broad canopy of green branches, where hymns 
were sung, addresses made, prayers offered, and then 
all partook of an ample feast. Young and old alike 
were jubilant. 

As numbers of our young and active men desired 
more full and specific instruction in the doctrines of 
the Bible and the duties of life than they gained in 
our common exercises, I received about twenty into 
a class for daily instruction in systematic theology, 
Scripture exegesis, sermonizing, etc. 

This school was kept up in convenient terms for 
several years. It was not designed to make pastors, 
but to train a class of more intelligent woikers than 
the common people. Some of these have since be- 
come preachers and pastors at home, and some have 
gone to labor in heathen lands. 



n8 Life in Hawaii. 

The whole number of preachers and missionaries 
who have gone out from the Hilo church and board- 
ing-school is : on foreign missions twelve, with their 
wives ; in the home field, nineteen, or thirty-one min- 
isters in all. 

From the beginning, the Hawaiian churches were 
taught the duty and the pleasure of giving to the 
needy. All the missionaries inculcated this doctrine, 
so that it became one of the essential fruits of their 
faith. They were not only taught to provide for 
themselves and their households, but also to " labor 
with their hand that they might have to give to him 
that kcketh." 

They received th*ese instructions cheerfully, and the 
stranger, the friendless, the sick, the unfortunate, and 
all in distress are cared for, and there is less physical 
suffering from hunger and want in this than in most 
countries in Christendom. 

All this is, of course, favored by the mildness of 
the climate, but the disposition and the habit of help- 
ing those who need are almost universal in these 
islands.' 

For long years after the arrival of the pioneer mis- 
sionaries, the people had no silver and gold, but they 
had food and kapas and hands and hearts to help. 
They gave as they could of their substance ; a little 
arrowroot, dried fish or vegetables, a stick of fire- 
wood, or a kapa. In 1840, the Wilkes Expedition 



Cheerful Givers. 119 

came, and brought silver dollars ; for want of small 
change, Capt. Wilkes ordered a large amount of Mex- 
ican dollars to be cut into halves and quarters. The 
natives have since fully learned the use of coined 
money. 

It has been my habit to preach on some branch of 
Christian kindness on the first Sabbath in every month, 
and the monthly concert prayer-meeting has always 
been kept up in Hilo. The people have been taught 
that "it is better to give than to receive," and that 
" the Lord loveth a cheerful giver." They have given 
freely for the missions in Micronesia, and hundreds of 
dollars have already come back to our mission treasury 
from those recently savage islands, so that our natives 
think they see a literal fulfillment of the blessed 
promise, " Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou 
shalt find it after many days." 

They see also that although the Hilo church has 
given more than one hundred thousand dollars for 
the kingdom of God, that they have a " hundred-fold " 
more now than when they began. 

Indolent and vicious foreigners have often express- 
ed great pity for our poor natives because they had 
been trained by " the cruel and covetous missionaries " 
to give for the objects of benevolence ; but it has now 
and then appeared that some of these tender-hearted 
strangers would not scruple to eat the natives' fish and 
fowl and poi without pay, or to drive a hard bargain 



120 Life in Hawaii. 

with them in trade, or to refuse to pay an honest debt. 
Even Catholic priests professed to pity- the Hawaiians 
because of the heavy burdens laid upon them by their 
teachers ! And the Mormon apostles told our people 
that the Lord " hated and abhorred our New Moons." 

As our monthly concerts occurred on the first Sun- 
day of every month, the natives called them "Mahina 
hou," which literally means new moon, or new month ; 
the word " mahina," moon, being their name for 
month, or the division of time marked by the moon. 
This wicked and deceitful catch of the Mormons upon 
the term for monthly concert so troubled and stag- 
gered my people that I went through my whole field, 
expounding in every village the first chapter of Isaiah, 
and the troubled minds were relieved and reestab- 
lished. 

The contributions for benevolence have been given 
with great apparent cheerfulness, as if in thorough un- 
derstanding that " the Lord loveth a cliccrfid giver." 

Our custom has been to have the donors come for- 
ward and deposit their offerings upon the table in front 
of the pulpit, and there has been an animation and en- 
thusiasm on such occasions most grateful to the pas- 
tor's heart to witness. I have seen mothers bringing 
their babes in their arms, or leading their toddling 
children, that these little ones might deposit a coin 
upon the table. If at first the child clung to the shin- 
ing silver as to a plaything, the mother would shake 



The Monthly Contribution. 121 

the baby's hand to make it let go its hold, and ear- 
nestly persevere in her efforts to teach the tender ones 
the act of giving before they knew the purpose. There 
have been instances where the dying have left with 
wife or husband their contribution to be brought for- 
ward at the monthly concert after their death. Such 
facts make a touching impression. 

From our small beginnings of four or five dollars a 
month, we increased gradually, till the amount has 
sometimes been two hundred a month. Before our 
church was divided our collections amounted yearly 
to several thousands, and in one case were as high 
as six thousand ; and even after we had set off six 
churches from the mother church, we have collected 
over five thousand dollars from the remaining church. 

Our people are now greatly diminished by death, 
and by being drawn away to the numerous plantations 
of the islands, upon ranches, into various industries 
with foreigners, and by hundreds into Honolulu, and 
on board vessels, and yet our monthly collections av- 
erage more than one hundred dollars. 

These contributions have been widely distributed 
in the United States and in other parts ; while many 
thousands of dollars have gone to sustain our mis- 
sions in the Marquesas Islands and in Micronesia. 

We have also given liberally to sustain our home- 
work — church building, Christian education, relief of 

the poor, and other objects. 
6 



122 Life in Hawaii. 

When we arrived in Hilo there was but one framed 
house. There were no streets, no bridges, no gardens 
and only a few foreign trees. 

Now our town is laid out in streets all named, and 
with every dwelling-house numbered. The town is 
adorned with beautiful shade and fruit trees, with gar- 
dens and shrubbery, vines, and a great variety of 
flowers. The scene is like a tropical Paradise. We 
have read of 

"Sweet fields arrayed in living green," 

and here they are spread out before us even on this 
side of Jordan. 

We have foliage of every shade of green, all inter- 
mingled ; the plumes of the lofty cocoa and royal 
palms waving, and the leaves of the mango, the bread- 
fruit, the alligator-pear, the rose apple, the tamarind, 
the loquot, the plum, the pride of India, the eucalyp- 
tus, and trailing and climbing vines, with many-tinted 
flowers, all glistening and fluttering in the bright sun 
and the soft breezes of our tropical abode. 

Formerly all our streams were crossed as best they 
might be, or suffered to run and roar, to sparkle and 
foam, to leap their precipices, and to plunge undis- 
turbed into the sea. Over these brooks and rivers, in 
town, and through the district of Hilo, more than fifty 
bridges have been built, some of them costing four 
thousand dollars. 



Sugar Culhcre. 123 

Once our fertile soil produced very little except 
kalo and the sweet potato, with a few indigenous fruits ; 
now fruits and vegetables have increased ten-fold 
in variety and value. But the great staple product of 
the district is sugar. 

During our residence here there have been erected 
seventeen sugar mills with their feeding plantations, 
whose total value would probably be more than one 
million of dollars, and whose products might be more 
than two millions. 

If our Government would take hold earnestly of 
road-making, with the aid of private enterprise, the 
value of Hilo soil and of our industries might be in- 
creased more than four-fold in as many years. 

Sailing along the emerald coast of Hilo, one sees 
the smoke-stacks of the sugar mills, the fields of wav- 
ing canes almost touching one another, and the little 
white villages attached to each plantation, lending the 
charm of beauty and variety to the scenery. 

The mercantile and mechanical business of our town 
is greatly increased by these plantations. Mechanical 
shops are abundant ; and so are shops of various char- 
acter, many of which are owned by Chinamen. 

But the plantations do not replenish our town with 
Hawaiians ; on the contrary, while foreigners of many 
nationalities, especially the Chinese, are increasing, 
our native population is perishing, or mixing its blood 
with that of foreign races. 



124 Life in Hawaii. 

Another great change is, that the people are, or 
may be if they will, all freeholders. The Bill of 
Rights given by Kamehameha III., followed by a 
liberal constitution, and by a code of laws, gave to 
every man the right to himself, to his family, to hold 
land in fee simple, and to the avails of his own skill 
and industry. This was what no common Hawaiian 
had ever enjoyed before ; and so great was the 
change that a large class of the natives could not 
believe it to be true. Many thought it to be a ruse 
to tempt them to build better houses, fence the 
lands, plant trees, and make such improvements in 
cultivation as should enrich the chiefs, who were the 
hereditary owners of the soil, while to the old ten- 
ants no profit would accrue. The parcels of land 
on which the people were living were granted to them 
by a royal commission on certain easy conditions. 
, Lands were also put into market at nominal prices, 
so that every man might obtain a piece if he would. 
I have known thousands of acres sold for twenty-five 
cents, other thousands for twelve and a half cents, 
and still others for six and a quarter cents an acre. 
These lands were, of course, at considerable distances 
from towns and harbors. But even rich lands near 
Hilo and other ports sold at one, two, or three dollars 
per acre. 

Thus the people were encouraged to become land- 
owners, to build permanent dwellings, and to im 



The New and the Old Government. 1 2 5 

prove their homesteads with fences, trees, and a bet- 
ter cultivation. Gradually many came to believe in 
the new order of things and to improve the golden 
opportunity, but others doubted and suffered it to 
pass unimproved. Those who accepted or bought 
land now find its value increased ten, and, in some 
cases, a hundred fold. 

The organizing of a constitutional government 
under a limited monarchy with its several depart- 
ments, legislative, executive, and judicial, and the 
admission of ^the common people to take part in the 
enactment and execution of laws, and the right of 
trial by jury, produced a vast and sudden change 
throughout the kingdom; and to this day it is an 
open question whether there was not too much lib- 
erty granted to the people before they had been 
sufficiently trained to appreciate and to use it. It 
may be doubted whether universal suffrage and trial 
by jury has been a benefit to the country. 

The old rule of the chiefs was liable to great op- 
pression and abuse, but where the irresponsible chief 
was thoughtful and righteous, justice was administered 
promptly and often wisely, without the interference 
of quibbling pettifoggers and unscrupulous lawyers. 

On one occasion when Dr. Judd and his family 
were our guests, he hired men to take them by land 
to the western side of the island, where they were to 
embark for Honolulu. There were about twelve men 



126 Life in Hawaii. 

thus positively engaged, with wages specified and 
accepted. The hour for departure came ; the men 
were all present ; the party, with baggage, all ready ; 
and then the natives struck for double pay ! 

I said to the Doctor, " Go straight to our chief 
woman," who, like Deborah of old, was our judge 
and sole ruler. He went. Her posse comitatus were 
on the ground in twenty minutes, and the strikers 
were found guilty and put to hard work in one hour 
without counsel of lawyer or the aid of a jury. 

At another time, a rabble becoming angry at some 
sailors who landed in the boat of a whale-ship, seized 
the boat and were carrying it inland as an act of 
reprisal. Old Opiopio called out her posse of strong 
arms, seized the men with the boat, put them all in 
prison, and returned the boat to the ship. Such 
prompt acts of justice struck the people with awe, 
and led them to reverence " the powers that be." 

These are noble exceptions ; but we now have a 
large set of intriguing lawyers who teach their clients 
to lie and to bribe witnesses, so that often " justice 
falls in the streets," the most guilty escape unpun- 
ished, and the innocent suffer. 

Still there is no going back, nor do we wish it ; for 
in spite of all the eddies and swirls, the back-sets and 
snags, the stream of civilization flows onward, and, 
with good pilots and skillful navigators, we trust the 
ship of state will be saved from wreck. 



X. 

Hawaiian Kings — The Kamehamehas — Lunalilo — 
Kalakaua, the Reigning King — The Foreign Church 
in Hilo — Organization of Native Churches under 
Native Pastors. 

TRADITION and history alike tell us of Kame- 
hameha I., the Caesar of Hawaii, the iron-framed 
warrior, the first legislator, and the first law-giver of 
the Hawaiian race. We are told how he warred and 
conquered, and how he united all the islands and all 
the petty principalities under one chief. There are 
men still living who have seen this stern old king. 
He died in 1819. 

Liholiho, styled Kamehameha II., was the reigning 
sovereign when the first band of missionaries arrived 
in 1820. With his queen he visited England, where 
both died, their remains being returned to Honolulu 
in the British ship Blonde, commanded by Lord 
Byron, the cousin of the poet. Kamehameha III., 
son of Kamehameha I., was on the Hawaiian throne 
when I arrived at the Islands, having been proclaimed 
not long before. 

He was then a young and mild prince, greatly 

honored and loved by the whole nation. The natives 

(127) 



128 Life in Hawaii. 

loved to style him " The Good King." Bad men, 
both foreigners and natives, beguiled him into some 
unworthy habits ; but his disposition was kind and 
amiable, and he was the king who gave to the people 
a liberal constitution with all its attendant blessings. 

During the great awakening which spread over the 
Islands in 1837 and onward, he was greatly impressed 
with the importance of spiritual things. He was not 
only an attendant on divine service on the Lord's 
day, but he was often in the prayer-meetings, appa- 
rently an earnest seeker after truth. He was also 
willing to listen to wise counsels; and during his 
reign his Government enacted a law forbidding the 
introduction and sale of intoxicating liquors in this 
kingdom. The nation became a great temperance 
society, with the king at its head ; and it was reported 
that he said he would rather die than drink another 
glass of liquor. 

During his year of abstinence he seemed like a 
new man. He was awake to all the interests of his 
kingdom, visited the different islands, addressed large 
assemblies, and greatly increased the love and homage 
of his people. 

His visits to Hilo were like a benediction ; the 
people flocked around him as they would around a 
father, and he seemed like a father to them. He 
visited our families, dined and supped with us, and 
gave us free opportunities to converse with him, not 



Kamehameha III. 129 

only on the interests of his kingdom, but also on his 
own spiritual interests and his personal relations to 
God and to the eternal future. He has gone with me 
into an upper chamber where we conversed together 
as brothers and knelt in humble prayer before the 
mercy-seat of the King Eternal. On one occasion, 
when he attended our Sabbath service, I preached 
from Jer. xxiii. 24, " Can any hide himself in secret 
places that I shall not see him ? saith the Lord.*' 
The doctrine of God's omnipresence and omniscience 
was the subject. 

The king seemed one of the most earnest hearers 
in the congregation, often bowing his head in assent 
to what was said. For months he seemed nearly 
ready to unite with the visible church, and his true 
friends rejoiced over him. 

But the spoiler came. He that " goeth about as a 
roaring lion seeking whom he may devour," was lying 
in wait for him. The French came with their fire and 
thunder, threatening his crown and kingdom if the 
prohibition law on intoxicants was not repealed ; and 
the British lion was ready to stand by the French eagle. 

The king was called a fool for coming under the 

influence of Protestant missionaries. He was, as 

report said, advised to assert his royal prerogative of 

independence, and urged to drink with his official and 

distinguished friends. The poor man, through fear 

and flattery, yielded, and his doom from that hour 
6* 



130 Life in Hawaii. 

was sealed. The old thirst was rekindled within him. 
A despair of reformation seemed to come over him ; 
the fiery dragon held him fast. He continued to 
yield to his appetite and to the solicitations of his 
false friends, and died December 15, 1854, in his forty- 
first year. On the same day Prince Alexander Liho- 
liho, his adopted son, was proclaimed king, under the 
style of Kamehameha IV. 

"This young king was the youngest of three sons 
of Kekuanaoa and the high chiefess of the Kameha- 
meha family. Kekuanaoa was one of nature's noble- 
men. He was not of the royal family, but he was of 
kingly bearing ; tall, well formed, and courteous in 
manners. He was Governor of Oahu and Generalis- 
simo of the royal troops. He was also a consistent 
member of the mission church in Honolulu. For 
his splendid physique, his noble bearing, and his 
mental and moral qualities, Kinau, who was daughter 
of Kamehameha I. and sister of Kamehameha III., 
chose him for her husband. 

Alexander Liholiho in stature and bearing some- 
what resembled his noble father. His reign was 
short but peaceful, and to some extent prosperous. 
He visited Hilo occasionally, and our social in- 
tercourse with him and his intelligent queen, Em- 
ma, was pleasant. 

Up to this time all the kings were in the habit of 
inviting the missionaries and their families to an 



Kamehameha IV. and V. 131 

annual reception at the palace during the season of 
the general meeting in Honolulu. 

Kamehameha IV. was a fair scholar in English 
literature, and he spoke and wrote the English lan- 
guage with ease and correctness, having enjoyed the 
advantages of an excellent training in the Royal 
School and Boarding Seminary under the charge of 
Mr. and Mrs. Amos Cooke, of the American Mission, 
and having also had the benefit of foreign travel with 
his brother Lot, under the care of Dr. Judd. 

He was succeeded by this older and only surviv- 
ing brother, who came to the throne as Kameha- 
meha V. 

Lot was a stern man, with an iron will, and a de- 
termination to rule his kingdom himself. He at 
once refused to take oath under the liberal constitu- 
tion of 1852, that had been drawn up by our excellent 
Chief-Justice, William L. Lee. He called a conven- 
tion of delegates from all the islands, and instructed 
them to frame a new constitution ; and while they 
lingered and debated, and declared that they had no 
power to annul or amend the former constitution, 
because it had provided that all changes and amend- 
ments should come from a regular legislative body, 
he dissolved the convention on the 13th August, 
1864, and declared that he would give them a con- 
stitution by his own royal authority. This he did on 
the 1 2th August, and the people, though complaining, 



132 Life hi Hawaii. 

submitted, as the high officers of the realm had 
bowed to his behest and took oath under this, 
as pronounced by high authority, unconstitutional 
constitution. The king was " master of the situ- 
ation." 

This king, so far as I know, had no concern in 
matters of religion, and did not attend any church. 
He spent his Sundays as he pleased, either in busi- 
ness, in sleeping, fishing, or in other, recreations. 

He visited Hilo occasionally, but never, I think, to 
call out his people and address them as a father on 
any subject affecting their present or future interests. 
I have known him to come to Hilo with his fishing- 
tackle, spend a season here, and then pass on to 
Puna, where it was reported he had his nets drawn on 
Sunday, and, on his return, he entered our town 
with his animals loaded with nets and other luggage, 
and his train of attendants, during the time of serv- 
ice on the Lord's day. 

At length he died, and was called before the high 
tribunal of the King of kings. With him ended the 
famous dynasty of the Kamehamehas. 

Our sixth king, Lunalilo, was the son of a high 
chiefess. His father did not belong to the family of 
chiefs by blood ; but descent by the maternal line 
ennobles in Hawaii. 

On the death of Kamehameha V., without nomi- 
nating a successor, Lunalilo sent out a proclamation 



King Lunalilo. 133 



over all the islands offering himself as the rightful 
heir to the throne, and calling on all the legalized 
voters to meet in their respective places and ballot 
for him. This was done promptly ; and on the first 
day of January, 1873, he was elected by 12,000 votes. 
On the eighth of that month his election was con- 
firmed by the Legislature then in session, and on the 
ninth he was proclaimed king. 

This popular election introduced a new feature 
into our government. 

Lunalilo was a bright, cheerful, and favorite prince. 
He had the habit of using liquors freely, but the 
people loved him for his wit. when under the influ- 
ence of intoxicants, and for his kindness and good 
bense when he was sober. He appointed good men 
for his cabinet ministers and for his privy coun- 
selors. He was pleased with the upright, and always 
took their 'side in argument. 

He soon visited Hilo, where he was received with 
acclamation. He appointed a meeting for all, and 
men, women, and children came in crowds shouting 
with joy, " Ko makou alii keia," " This is our king" 
alluding to the fact that the people had elected him, 
a privilege never before awarded them. After a good 
speech to old and young, he shook hands with all the 
hundreds present, stooping down to the little ones 
and smiling upon them so kindly that he won all 
hearts. We conversed with him freely, and he took 



134 Life in Hawaii. 

no offense when urged to abstain from all intoxicants. 
Had he resisted the evil counsels of boon companions 
and his own appetites, he might still have been our 
king, to the joy of all. But his reign was shorter 
than that of any who had gone before him. He died 
on the 3d of February, 1874, having occupied the 
throne a little less than thirteen months. 

David Kalakaua, our seventh and present king, was 
born in Honolulu on the 16th of November, 1836, and 
elected on the 12th of February, 1874. His parents 
were both chiefs of an ancient line. The family 
often spent a good deal of time in Hilo, and the 
mother died here. His queen, Kapiolani, was brought 
up in Hilo from childhood. Kalakaua is intelligent, 
having excellent command of the English language, 
and having also had the advantages of an unusually 
interesting tour around the world. We believe that 
he desires to rule well and see his little kingdom 
prosper and progress. 

The reigns of our kings since Kamehameha I. have 
been short, and the cause is apparent. Little did I 
think when we came to these islands that I should 
live to see four kings buried and a fifth upon the 
throne. How striking the admonition in the 146th 
Psalm : " Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son 
of man in whom is no help. His breath goeth 
forth, he returneth to his earth ; in that very day 
his thoughts perish." 



The Foreign Church in Hilo. 135 

I have said something in regard to evangelical 
labors for seamen and for our English-speaking resi- 
dents. 

It was resolved at length to organize a church and 
seek a pastor for this class of our inhabitants ; and on 
the 9th of February, 1868, a church was organized 
with fourteen foreign members. On the 26th of 
July the building was dedicated, and on this occasion 
the Lord's supper was administered, and three candi- 
dates were admitted to fellowship. The edifice will 
seat about one hundred and fifty. It is neat, and 
well kept within and without. Standing near the 
larger native church, it shines like a gem amidst our 
green foliage. 

A call was sent to the Rev. Frank Thompson, who, 
having arrived with his wife early in 1869, was in- 
stalled on the 15th of May of that year. Upon the 
resignation of Mr. Thompson, after a pastorate of a 
little more than five years, the Rev. A. O. Forbes, son 
of the late missionary, Cochran Forbes, was settled 
over this church, where he labored faithfully until he 
resigned to accept the secretaryship of the Hawaiian 
Evangelical Association. 

The foreign church, though small and not wealthy, 
is active and generous. They pay a salary of $1,200 
or $1,400, furnishing a parsonage to the pastor, and 
they give generous sums for missionary purposes and 
for other Christian and philanthropic objects. 



136 Life in Hawaii. 

During the year 1863 the Rev. Dr. Anderson, then 
corresponding secretary of the A. B. C. F. M., visited 
the Hawaiian Islands with a view of conferring with 
the missionaries on the subject of putting most of 
the churches under the care of native pastors. 
He urged the plan earnestly, and a full discussion 
followed. Some of the missionaries favored the new 
departure at once, others doubted its wisdom, and 
others still were willing to see the plan commenced 
on a small scale, and to watch its operations. Each 
pastor and church determined the time and man- 
ner for themselves. And so the experiment began. 

At length I began a movement in that direction, 
and on the 16th of October, 1864, the first church 
was set off from the mother church, and a native was 
ordained and installed over it. Not long after, on 
Oct. 14, 1866, I organized another church in the 
district of Hilo, and a third in 1868 ; and pastors were 
ordained over them. 

One was organized in Puna in 1868, and two more 
in 1869, so that there were now six churches set off 
from the old one. All these were provided with good 
and neat houses of worship under my direction, and 
with church bells. Most of these churches had one, 
two, or three chapels, or smaller meeting-houses, 
which served as places of meetings on secular days, 
and on Sabbaths near evening. For a great many 
years the natives were accustomed to hold morning 



Native Hawaiian Pastors. 137 



prayer-meetings, and they might be seen assembling 
at early dawn every day in the week. 

The original cost of these churches and chapels, 
with that of keeping them in repair and furnishing 
them with bells, would amount to about $10,000, and 
that of the central church and its chapels would be 
about $20,000. 

The number of church members dismissed to organ- 
ize the six new churches was in all 2,604. 

They have had ten pastors. Of these, five are dead, 
two have been called to other places, one has resigned 
on account of age and infirmities, and two only re- 
main at their posts. This would be nearly the 
record of our Hawaiian pastors over the whole group. 
They waste away rapidly by disease and death, and 
they change places often. Some wear out ; some fall 
into sin ; and some engage in other callings. A 
goodly number run well, being steadfast in the faith, 
diligent workers, and patient withal. 

We are often asked how our native preachers wear, 
and whether we were not hasty in making them co- 
ordinate pastors with the missionaries. These ques- 
tions may be answered differently by different ob- 
servers. Some, perhaps many, of our number think 
it would have been better to have waited longer 
before giving them the full power of ordained pastors, 
that while they should have been trained to work 
with the missionaries, as they had been, with the 



138 Life in Hawaii. 



most happy results, they should not have been so 
soon put upon a parity with them. 

While subordinate, they are more docile and re- 
spectful ; when on a parity, they sometimes show a 
disposition to be assuming and discourteous, an 
effect occasionally seen elsewhere in men on a sudden 
elevation. 

The native ministers now outnumber us more than 
five to one, and when we meet in our evangelical asso- 
ciations they know, of course, their numerical power, 
and it requires great wisdom on the part of the foreign 
members to secure that influence which is necessary 
to good order and to harmonious action. In our 
Association for Eastern Hawaii we have never as 
yet had any difficulties of a serious kind, and yet we 
are liable to them, especially when some self-conceited 
stranger comes in as a disturbing element. 

A Democratic or a Republican Government can 
never be strong, and pure, and permanent unless the 
people who create it and hold the power are intelligent 
and moral. And the same law holds true in church 
polity. From our point of view we think that we see 
clearly how the Episcopal and the Catholic church 
governments originated, as a matter of necessity, in 
the midst of peoples who were ignorant, unstable, 
and not to be trusted with responsible power. I do 
not find in the Bible, or in the wisdom of all commen- 
tators and expositors of the sacred Scriptures, any 



Our Churches Undenominational. 139 

definite and fixed rules of church polity, but rather 
the elements of many. 

Congregationalism is excellent where all or most of 
the members of a church are intelligent and virtuous, 
or where men know how to govern themselves and 
their children. 

The Presbyterian government is strong, and when 
exercised wisely and in meekness it is good. 

Prelacy might seem necessary in certain states of 
society, and the right of choice can hardly be dis- 
puted by wise, candid, and liberal minds. 

Our Hawaiian churches are not called Episcopal, 
Presbyterian, or Congregational, or by any other 
name than that of the Great Head, the Shepherd 
and Bishop of souls. We call them Christian churches. 



XL 

Compensations— Social Pleasures — Some of our Guests 
and Visitors. 

FROM the almost entire absence of civilized so- 
ciety, we have now come to enjoy the fellow- 
ship of a community of families and individuals equal, 
on an average, in intelligence, morality, and refine- 
ment, to any with which I am acquainted. In addi- 
tion to the three mission families who have been 
longest on the ground, there is around us a little 
community of families of missionary descendants of 
the first and second generations. The number of 
cultivated and scientific visitors from other parts 
of the world is also increasing. 

When in 1835 we were stationed at Hilo, a good 
brother missionary wept and condoled with us be- 
cause of our banishment from civilized society, our 
communication with friends so slow and uncertain. 
But we believed our destination was ordered of the 
Lord. The feeling of joy with which we first hailed 
the sight of its beautiful harbor, its fields of living 
green, its shining hills, has never left us. And while 
(140) 



Visits of Sa ilors. 141 

we have tilled our garden, saying, Let its moral beauty 
outshine its physical, and " its righteousness go forth 
as brightness, and its salvation as a lamp that burn- 
etii," we have found our life full of compensations. 

I do not now regret a sojourn in " that great and 
howling wilderness " of Patagonia, or my perils on 
the sea and in the rivers ; my painful travels on foot 
over thousands of miles, or my hungerings and thirst- 
ings in cold and heat, nor any suffering that the Lord 
has laid upon me in His service. They all seem light 
and momentary now, and there is full compensation 
in the joy the Master has granted me. 

I have spoken of the visits of seamen to this port, 
and of the religious efforts in their behalf. Their 
coming often added to our social comforts. The very 
sight of the stars and stripes at their masthead, the 
snowy canvas, or the weather-beaten and tempest- 
torn sails, was pleasant. Many of the masters brought 
cultivated and pious wives, and from time to time 
they, with their little children, would be left with 
us for months while the ships were absent on their 
cruises in the north, the south-east, and west. Not 
a few sailors' boys and girls have been born in Hilo, 
and several have been born in our house. We have 
formed near and lasting friendships with many of 
these visitors. We have nursed sick sailors under 
our roof, and sent them home healed, so far as we 
could judge by their conduct and profession, in soul 



142 Life in Hawaii, 

and body. We have buried the remains of seamen 
in the soil of Hilo, attended to their secular affairs, 
and written to parents and friends by their request ; 
we have found out the wandering sons of senators, 
•clergymen, and men of wealth and distinction, as well 
as of the poor and lowly, and received the tearful 
thanks of parents, comrades, and friends. 

The dust of a wild young English physician lies in 
our cemetery. He was the son of a clergyman, and 
his mother, sisters, and brothers were all Christians, 
while he wandered, like the poor prodigal, into realms 
unknown to his mourning friends. He was shy of 
the missionaries, but in his wildness the hand of the 
Lord arrested him. He fell from a horse and received 
a mortal injury. In his misery he sent for me ; he 
knew his wound was fatal, and he felt that he must 
be forever lost. When I pointed him to the Lamb of 
God and spoke to him of the blood which cleanseth 
from all sin, he exclaimed, " Can it be possible that is 
for me — that I can be saved?" He came at last to 
trust, his despair fled, and in three days he died in 
peace on the very day he had set for his departure 
from earth. We buried him with tears, and thanks- 
giving to Him who " giveth us the victory." There 
was printed on the slab that marks the repose of his 
mortal part this stanza from one of his own poets : 

" By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, 
By foreign hands thy clay-cold limbs composed, 



Judge William L. Lee. 143 

By foreign hands thy humble grave's adorned ; 
By strangers honored and by strangers mourned." 

A tender and grateful answer was received to the 
letter written to his parents. 

We had, at different times, not less than five pro- 
fessed physicians who offered their services to our 
public. But one after another four of them died, and 
the fifth left the country, and shortly after, he also 
died. All these were intemperate, and some of them 
were bitter haters of the missionaries and opposers 
of the work of the Lord. The career of four of them 
was very short, and their deaths were sudden and ad- 
monitory. 

Our great volcano has attracted many hundreds of 
visitors, and they have come from nearly all the 
nations under heaven. Many have been distinguished 
scientists. Statesmen and foreign officials of almost 
every rank have looked in upon us, and our inter- 
course has been most precious with the many Chris- 
tians that we have been permitted to entertain. 

Chief-Justice William L. Lee, chancellor of the 
kingdom, spent many days with us. Coming from the 
United States in 1846, he was a leader in our govern- 
ment until his death in 1857. His chief labors were the 
drafting of the Constitution of 1852, the civil and penal 
codes, and his arduous and gratuitous services as Pres- 
ident of the Land Commission, which abolished feu- 
dalism, and gave each native his land in fee simple. A 



144 Life in Hawaii. 

man of high ability, integrity, and of charming personal 
character, his name can never be forgotten in Hawaii. 

Prof. C. S. Lyman, of Yale College, was our guest 
for three months, and his scientific tastes and acquire- 
ments, and his mechanical skill, made his visit es- 
pecially interesting. We used to say that with a 
jack-knife, a file, and a gimlet he could make any- 
thing. An excellent sun-dial, a complicated rain- 
gauge, with a clock attachment, a self-opening and 
closing valve, and a scale that marked the day, the 
hour, and the moment of rain-fall, with the exact 
amount of water, and a bookcase of koa wood for my 
study, were some of the proofs of his skill. He made, 
also, one of the best surveys of Kilauea crater that I 
have ever seen. 

He once accompanied me along the shores and over 
the highlands of my missionary field, sharing with me 
my simple fare and my rocky beds, and cheering me 
with his delightfully genial companionship. 

How vividly I remember one incident in our tour! 
We were returning from Puna over the highlands 
where, for fifteen miles, there were no inhabitants. 
Our trail lay through forest and jungle and open 
fields of wild grasses and rushes. We heard that 
about midway between the shore and an inland vil- 
lage there was a small grass hut built by bird-catch- 
ers, but now abandoned. We struck for that, and 
reached it a little before sundown. We entered with 



A Trip with Professor Lyman, 145 

our two native burden-bearers, and congratulated our- 
selves on having found a shelter for the coming cold 
and rainy night. In less time than I can write the 
story we began to jump and stamp and dance. 
What is the matter ? we exclaimed, and looking down 
upon our legs we saw them sprinkled thick with fleas, 
those terrible back-biters that never talk. We order- 
ed a hasty march and went on at double-quick 
through bush and brake, scattering our actively blood- 
thirsty foes by the way. After a mile's walk we 
skirted a forest, and here, sheltered from the wind, we 
halted and began our works of defence from the com- 
ing rain and cold. Without axe or saw we broke off 
limbs of trees and made a little booth, which we cov- 
ered with grass and leaves, and then prepared wood 
for a fire. 

Alas ! we had no matches, no lamp, no candle. 
What next ? — One of our natives took his pole, which 
they call the auamo-yokQ, on which they carry burdens, 
and by hard and rapid friction with another dry stick 
he soon raised smoke, and fire followed. At nine 
P.M. it was a roaring fire at which we dried ourselves, 
and when we had eaten our scanty supper, and offer- 
ed up thanks to the Lord, we lay down to sleep — or 
not to sleep — as the case might be. 

Long after this Mr. Wm. T. Brigham, of Boston, 
spent a season with us, and went the same rounds 
with me. On this occasion we visited a pulu station 
7 



146 Life in Hawaii, 

upon the highlands, and in a deep forest. Here were 
about thirty or forty men and women employed in 
gathering this soft, silky fern-down for upholstery, and 
here, ten miles from Kilauea, we saw the natives cook 
their food over hot steam cracks without fuel. Near 
the volcano this is frequently done. 

The widowed Lady Franklin was our guest for a 
while. The patient, hopeful, and earnest woman 
was then (1861) in search of her husband, Sir John 
Franklin. It was sad to see her hopes blasted. 

An honored officer of the British army in India 
once spent a week with us. He came an entire 
stranger, but by his great intelligence, his urbanity, 
his noble figure, and his gentlemanly address, he made 
an indelible impression upon us. And this impression 
was deepened by such a frank and affecting tale of 
his life as filled us with interest in his behalf. His 
mind was in such a state that his appetite and his 
sleep often departed from him. He occupied an 
upper room in our house with a door opening upon 
a veranda, which afforded a good and quiet prom- 
enade. Often during many hours of the night we 
could hear his foot-falls as he paced to and fro 
through the still watches. He was always with us at 
our morning and evening hours of devotion, and he 
seemed to enter earnestly into these exercises. 

At length he could no longer restrain his feelings, 
and begged that we would hear his tale of sorrow. 



A Heavy -Burdened Gtiest. 147 

He began, saying: " I was once a happy man, but now 
I am miserable. I had a very dear friend, a fellow 
officer in the army, and I loved him as my own soul. 
On a certain occasion, and through a misunderstand, 
ing, an altercation took place between us, and he 
hastily gave me a challenge. I, under a false sense of 
honor, as hastily accepted. We met, and my bullet 
pierced his heart. I saw him stagger, and ran to 
hold him up. His warm blood spurted over me. 
He said, faintly, ' You have killed me.' He gasped, 
and was dead. I laid him down ; the sight of his pale, 
ghastly face filled me with horror. That image 
haunts me everywhere. It comes to me in my 
dreams. It stares at me in my waking hours ; it 
haunts me like a ghost ; it follows me like my 
shadow ; and I am miserable. I have attended 
church, have read my Bible through and through, 
to find something on which to hang a hope. I have 
read sermons and systems of theology ; I have wept 
and prayed, but no comfort comes to me. In spite 
of all my prayers, and tears, and struggles for pardon 
and peace, the ghost of my murdered friend haunts 
me. It wakes me at midnight, it confronts me by 
day, and what can I do ? Is there any hope for such 
a blood-stained sinner as I am ? " 

His plaintive story struck us dumb for a while ; 
our hearts were melted with sympathy ; but presently 
we blessed the gracious Lord for this opportunity. 



148 Life in Hawaii. 

We saw his difficulty, that he was filled with " the 
sorrow of the world which worketh death." He had 
labored in agony to save himself, and the cloud 
of despair grew thicker and darker over him. I at 
once pointed him to " The Lamb of God who taketh 
away the sins of the world." "Yes," said he, " but 
can Jesus forgive my sin? It seems too great to be 
forgiven." I assured him that " the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanses from all sin" and that Isaiah had told 
us long ago, that if we would but listen to our God, 
" though our sins be as scarlet they should be white 
as snow, and though red as crimson they should be 
as wool." And that Jesus "will in no wise cast out " 
one penitent sinner that comes to Him. It was his 
duty, and it was an infinite privilege to believe and 
accept pardon and peace as a free gift of God, while 
it was an insult to God to doubt His call and His 
promises ; this " treading underfoot the blood of 
the Son of God " would be a greater and a more 
fatal sin than to have shed the blood of his friend. 
He accepted the offer of salvation, and rejoiced in 
hope. He found, to his joy, that there is "a blood 
which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel," 
or the blood of his murdered companion. 

After he left us he remained some time in Hono- 
lulu, and we there met him again on our annual visit, 
just before he embarked to return to India. 

We have heard from him several times since, and 



Admirals DuPont and Pearson. 149 

learned that he had been promoted in the army and 
in civil life, and that he was happy. He was, I 
think, six feet four inches tall, weighing some 225 
pounds, well formed, a man of great physical power, 
of superior strength of intellect, and excellent execu- 
tive ability. With a heart and conscience of tender 
sensibilities, he was "bold as a lion" in all he felt to 
be right, but he quailed before what he believed to 
be wrong. 

We have not only enjoyed the privilege of enter- 
taining men of rank, but also men of low estate, for 
poor and friendless strangers came to our distant 
shores as well as the rich and the noble, and we feel 
it to be no less, and often a greater, privilege to care 
for the neglected and needy than for the honorable. 
The lessons of Christ are plain, practical, and personal. 
"/ was hungry and ye gave me meat," " When thou 
makest a feast — call the poor," " Remember the 
stranger" and "Be careful to remember the poor." 
And we have sometimes entertained angels unawares. 

I should like to speak of many more of those 
whose acquaintance we have made, and who have 
been our guests in our Hilo home ; as Admiral S. F. 
DuPont, the gallant officer, the accomplished gen- 
tleman and the sincere Christian, whose dearly-cher- 
ished friendship we enjoyed until the day of his 
death ; or of Admiral Pearson, who with his wife and 
daughter spent a season in our family. On our visit 



150 Life in Hawaii. 

to the United States in 1870 both Mrs. DuPont and 
Mrs. Pearson spared no pains to see us in their homes. 

But time would fail me to speak of the visits of 
the venerable Dr. Anderson and his wife, of Boston ; 
the gifted Dr. Boyd and his estimable wife, of Ge- 
neva, with whom we held sweet converse ; the 
" Friends " Wheeler, of London ; Joel and Hannah 
Bean, of Iowa; President Moore, of Earlham College, 
through whom we have been brought into Christian 
fellowship with many of his denomination; of Dr. 
Thompson, of Detroit, who in his advanced years 
came to look upon this distant missionary field, and 
was almost enamored with the beauties of Hilo; of 
the Rev. Mr. Hallock, who with glowing heart went 
back to tell his people of what he had seen in these 
isles of the sea ; and of many others whose visits of 
Christian love and fellowship were cheering and 
refreshing in this far-off land. 

If these brief seasons of communion on earth are 
so sweet, what will the reunion of kindred spirits be 
in the eternal world where love forever reigns ? 

Of one other guest I would speak somewhat more 
fully, for from our humble abode she went up to the 
palace of the King in heaven. In the midst of ear- 
nest missionary work with her husband, the Rev. J. D. 
Paris, located on the southern shores of Hawaii, she 
was stricken down with consumption. They came to 
our house and were our guests until she died ; and 



Mrs. J.D. Paris. 151 

here on the borders of the unseen world, while she 
still lingered, she spoke words of such triumphant 
faith that I would transcribe them anew. 

When told that no one thought it probable that 
she would recover, she was silent for several minutes ; 
then calling her husband to her bedside, she said : 
" Do not be anxious about me ; I commit all to the 
Lord, to live or to die. I have had a strong desire 
to be spared for your sake and that of our little ones. 
I have hoped that I might live to see the image of 
Christ impressed upon their hearts. They will need 
a mother's care, a mother's watchfulness ; but let 
His will, not mine, be done. He has always been 
good to me, infinitely better than I deserve. Let us 
leave all with Him ; His time is best." 

To the question how she felt in regard to her 
spiritual state, she replied : " I have no distressing 
fears. I know that I love the Saviour and that He 
loves me. I sometimes shrink from the thought of 
death and the cold grave ; but when I look beyond 
all is calm, all is peace." 

Hearing one speak of " the dark valley and shadow 
of death," she asked, " What does that mean ? I do 
not understand it. I look upon death very differently. 
Jesus will come and take the soul to Himself. It 
will be released from its house of clay and wafted to 
immortal glory. The valley does not look dark to 
me now, perhaps it may ; but I think it will not be 



152 Life in Hawaii. 

dark to me anywhere if my Saviour is with me, and 
He will never, no, never leave me." 

One night when her end was near, she urged her 
husband to seek rest. He objected, as her hands 
were cold and her pulse feeble and irregular, and he 
feared she would swoon away and awake no more. 

"You ought not to say so," she replied. " It would 
be a blessed end to swoon away into the arms of my 
Saviour and awake in His image. Do not be afraid. 
If Jesus should take me away from your side without 
a struggle or a groan, would you grieve ? " 

On another occasion, when Mr. Paris read 

" On Jordan's stormy banks I stand," 

and spoke of Bunyan's river of death, remarking that 
she now stood on the verge of this river, she replied : 
" I do not like that view of death. Our blessed 
Saviour has told us that He will come again for His 
own and receive them to Himself. I love to believe 
His words and to commit myself to Him. If He 
takes me to Himself death is swallowed up in victory. 
What are all the dark valleys and rivers if Jesus is 
with us ? " 

I said, " Do you see your way clear ? " 
" Yes," she answered promptly, " it is all clear ; 
there is no cloud, no darkness ; all is light up to the 
heavenly hills." 

Morning was breaking upon the mountains of 



A Peaceful End. 153 

Hawaii, while a morning of unending brightness was 
dawning on her soul. Her mortal powers gently gave 
way ; " the silver cord was loosed/' and she quietly 
left us in our tears for the bosom of her Saviour. 



7* 



XII. 

Seedling Missions — Hawaii sends out Missionaries — 
Need of a Missionary Packet — The Three ' ' Morn- 
ing Stars." 

IN the prosecution of our work on the Hawaiian 
Islands, an active missionary spirit was developed 
in great strength. This was of course one of the 
legitimate fruits of a faithfully preached and truly 
accepted Gospel. 

We sent a mission to the Marquesas Islands, which 
for years we conducted under great disadvantages. 
We had no packet to communicate with that group, 
but were obliged to charter small and uncomfortable 
vessels, at high prices, to carry out our missionaries 
with their supplies and to send out our annual dele- 
gates to look after and encourage them. 

Then as our funds and men increased we thought 
that the Marquesan field was too small for our ener- 
gies, and the idea sprang up in the minds of some 
of our brethren that we might " lengthen our cords " 
by exploring among the numerous islands to the west, 
and establishing a mission in Micronesia in conjunc- 
tion with the American Board. 
(154) 



The "Morning Star" No. i. 155 

This thought ripened into action, and American 
and Hawaiian missionaries were sent out. Still we 
had no vessel at command and were obliged to look 
to others to supply this want. Hence arose the 
thought of securing the needed packet. 

I proposed that we should request the Board to 
call on the children of the United States to contribute 
in shares of ten cents for such a vessel, and that her 
name be The Day Star. This was agreed to, and 
the mission appointed me to write to the Board at 
Boston on the subject. 

The proposal met with favor, with only one amend- 
ment, viz., that the name should be The Morning 
Star. The call on the children to take shares in this 
enterprise was popular, and it spread over many 
States. The needed sum was raised, and the Morning 
Star (No. 1) was built, manned, and provided. In due 
time she sailed from Boston with the prayers and 
* benedictions of a multitude and with the old song, 

" Waft, waft, ye winds, his story, 
And you, ye waters, roll.'' 

On the 24th of April, 1857, having braved the bil- 
lows of the Atlantic, swept round the stormy Cape 
Horn, and sped half way over the Pacific, the beauti- 
ful schooner reached Honolulu. Thence she sailed 
for the Marquesas Islands with supplies ; and on her 
return, early in July, she appeared off the entrance of 



156 Life in Hawaii. 

Hilo harbor, dressed in all her white sails with her 
flag fluttering in the breeze and with her star shining 
in the center. 

Hilo was jubilant. We had heard of her sailing, 
had counted on her time, and had been watching for 
her arrival. Arrangements had been made to give 
her a hearty welcome. Parents and children came 
hasting in from all quarters, winding over the hills 
and along their footpaths and filling our streets. 

Captain Moore came on shore with his officers and 
passengers, and was met by the well-dressed and dec- 
orated children in double file, bearing a flag prepared 
for the occasion. With songs of welcome they were 
waited upon to the great church, which was soon 
filled to its entire capacity. Prayers were offered, 
hymns and an original ode to the Star were sung, ad- 
dresses made, and all went off with a hearty good- 
will. We were happy on this occasion to welcome 
the Rev. Hiram Bingham, Jr., with his young wife, 
bound to Micronesia, and little knowing what suffer- 
ings awaited them in those dark and distant islands. 

Afterward the natives were invited on board the 
vessel, and as our children had given freely for the 
vessel, they inspected her with many expressions of 
admiration and delight, feeling their importance as 
joint owners of the beautiful packet. The -people, 
old and young, brought liberal gifts of fruits and veg- 
etables, fishes and fowls. 






The "Morning Star" No. 2. 157 

The Star remained two days and then sailed for 
Honolulu with the good wishes of all Hilo. 

This packet, after years of service in the Pacific, 
was sold for a merchant vessel, fitted out and left the 
islands for China, but has never been heard from since 
her departure. 

The Morning Star No. 2 was built by the funds 
received from the sale of the old one, supplemented by 
further gifts from the children. She was a larger, bet- 
ter built, and more convenient boat than the first and 
did good service. But her end came all too soon. 
After a successful cruise among the islands of Micro- 
nesia, and on leaving the little islet of Kusaie, or 
Strong's Island, when all seemed propitious, she 
drifted upon the rocks and was broken in pieces. All 
on board escaped to the land to wait an opportunity 
to return to their homes. 

This event seemed sad, and some of us have not 
ceased to think that we need, and ought to have, 
steam as an auxiliary motor to help our packet in 
calms, in adverse currents, and when in danger on 
entering and leaving dangerous harbors. All the 
important secular interests of the world employ 
steam and other discoveries and improvements in all 
the departments of science, art, and industry. We 
harness the lightning to our cars ; our thoughts flash 
under deep oceans, over towering mountains, and 
through mid-air. The business of this world chal- 



158 Life in Hawaii. 

lenges all the forces of nature to its aid, and why 
should the Gospel move so slowly? Why should the 
angel that flies through the midst of heaven with the 
Gospel message move with clipped wings ? The 
artillery of war moves on swift wheels to shake the 
nations and pour out human blood, while the old sails 
flap, and the lazy boom squeaks mournfully in the 
doldrums, as our vessels are driven hither and thither 
by the squalls and storms of capes that obstruct their 
way to the lost tribes of men. If the Lord will, I 
hope to hear the whistle of a missionary steamer in 
our waters before I go hence. 

Two Stars have set in the West, and here comes 
the Morning Star No. 3, fairer and brighter than 
those which have disappeared, well built, larger and 
better than the other two. 

The insurance money on No. 2, with another lift 
from the children, had soon brought her keel into the 
waters, raised her well-shaped spars, set up her stand- 
ing, and arrayed her running rigging, clothed her with 
a white cloud of canvas, and run up her beautiful flag 
to wave in the breezes of heaven. Well furnished, 
with a well-appointed crew, with an excellent captain 
and good officers, she is now (1880) on her tenth 
voyage to Micronesia, taking out supplies to the 
laborers in that widening field, and a reinforcement, 
long waited for, for the Gilbert Islands. 



XIII. 

The Marquesas Islands — Early English and French 
Missions — The Hawaiians Send a Mission to Them 
— My Visit in i860 — The Marques an Tabu System* 

THE Marquesas Archipelago consists of thirteen 
islands, only six of which are inhabited, viz : 
Nuuhiva, Uahuna, Uapou, Hivaoa, Tahuata, and 
Fatuiva. Seven are small islets or rocky piles of little 
importance. 

The group is divided into two chains, trending 
N. W. and S. E., between the latitudes 7 50" and io° 
30 / south, and longitude 138 30' and 140 50' west. 

The windward group was discovered in 1595 by 
Mendana de Neyra, the commander of a Spanish 
squadron bound from Peru to colonize the Solomon 
Islands during the reign of Philip II. of Spain, and 
was named Las Marquesas de Mendoza in honor of 
the Viceroy of Peru. 

The leeward islands, though but a short distance 

off, were not discovered until 1791, nearly 200 years 

later, when they were seen by Capt. Ingraham, of 

Boston, and named Washington Islands. But the 

(159) 



160 Life in Hawaii. 

term Marquesas now embraces both groups, as it 
properly should, the inhabitants being one in lan- 
guage, manners, and race. 

The origin of the group, like that of the Hawaiian, 
is distinctly igneous. All the islands give evidence 
of having been raised up from the depths of the 
ocean by volcanic fires. The surface is mountainous 
and exceedingly broken. The coasts rise from the 
water like walls. Deep gorges, lofty promontories, 
bold bluffs, serrated ridges, perpendicular buttresses, 
sea-walls plunging thousands of feet into the sea, 
turrets, towers, cones pointed and truncated, rocky 
minarets, needles, spires, with confused masses of 
rocks, scoria, tufa, and other volcanic products, 
testify to the terrific rage of Plutonic agencies in 
unknown ages past. Many of the ridges are so 
precipitous and lofty that they can not be crossed 
by man. And many of the rocky ribs come down 
laterally from the lofty spine, or dividing ridge, on an 
angle of 30 , and form submarine and subaerial but- 
tresses, leaving no passage except in canoes. The 
lowest of these inhabited islands reaches a height of 
2,430 feet above the level of the sea, and the highest, 
of 4,130. Most of them have fertile valleys half a mile 
to three miles deep, and from one-tenth of a mile to 
a mile wide, with rills of pure water falling from the 
high inland cliffs, and rippling along rocky and shaded 
beds to the ocean. 



The Marquesans. 161 

The valleys are also filled with luxuriant shrubs, 
vines, and magnificent trees. 

The inhabitants are of the Polynesian race, and 
their language was originally the same as that of the 
Hawaiian and Society Islands, Cook's Islands, New 
Zealand, and other islands of the Polynesian archi- 
pelagoes. 

They are more bold, independent, fierce, and blood- 
thirsty than most of their neighbors, and they have 
always been cannibals of the most savage kind. 
The men are large, well-formed, and powerful, and 
many of the women do not lack in physical beauty. 
They dress very little, and mostly in bark tapa, like 
the ancient Hawaiians. They live in small thatched 
houses, and feed on cocoanuts, breadfruits, and fish. 

They were once numerous, but the introduction of 
foreigners and foreign diseases have wasted them so 
that they have been reduced more than two-thirds. 

In 1797 the English ship Duff took Messrs. Crook 
and Harris to the Marquesas as missionaries. The 
natives were fierce-looking and savage, and Mr. Harris 
preferred to return in the same vessel to Tahiti. Mr. 
Crook remained alone at the island of Tahuata about 
six months. He then went to Nuuhiva, where he 
lived six months more, and then returned in a whale- 
ship to England, hoping to come back to the Mar- 
quesas with a reinforcement of missionaries. Event- 
ually, however, he joined the mission at Tahiti. 



1 62 Life in Hawaii. 

In 1 82 1 two natives of the Society Islands were 
sent as missionaries to the Marquesas, but fearing the 
savages, they soon returned. In 1825 Mr. Crook 
revisited the Islands, leaving two Society Island 
Christians at Tahuata. These also soon returned, 
and were succeeded by others who remained but a 
short time. 

In 1 83 1 Mr. Darling, an English missionary of 
Tahiti, visited the group and left native teachers at 
Fatuiva and Tahuata. These, like their predecessors, 
had no success and returned. 

At length the Hawaiian mission took up the sub- 
ject of evangelizing the cannibals of Marquesas. The 
first step was to send a delegation thither to examine 
the situation ; and, in 1833, Messrs. Armstrong, Alex- 
ander, and Parker, with their wives, went to Taiohae, 
Nuuhiva, to labor for the good of the savages. But 
their situation was so uncomfortable, and the circum- 
stances of the ladies and children so distressing, not 
to say dangerous, that they all returned after eight 
months to the Hawaiian Islands, which were even 
then a paradise compared with the Marquesas. 

In 1834 Mr. Stallworthy and Mr. and Mrs. Rodger- 
son, of the London Missionary Society, arrived from 
England, and in company with Mr. Darling, of Tahiti, 
commenced labors at Tahuata. After one year Mr. 
Darling left, and in 1837 Mr. and Mrs. Rodgerson 
sailed for Tahiti, Mr. Stallworthy remaining alone 



Early Missions to the Marqicesans. 163 

until August, 1839, when he was joined by the Rev. 
R. Thompson. But these two did not continue long, 
and the London Missionary Society, after repeated 
and earnest efforts for the occupation of the field, 
abandoned it without success. 

The history of these efforts to tame the Marquesan 
cannibals is remarkable and the failure sad. For 
more than forty years company after company of de- 
voted men and heroic women toiled and prayed for 
that stubborn race, and gave up in despair. And the 
history of these tribes is unique among the Polynesian 
family. 

And now. come the efforts of the Roman Catholics 
among the Marquesans. In August, 1838, Du Petit 
Thouars, commander of the French frigate Venus, 
brought two priests and one layman to Tahuata, and 
in 1839 these were followed by six priests and one 
layman. 

In May, 1842, Admiral Thouars took forcible pos- 
session of the Islands, and the priests have occupied 
them at several stations ever since. 

In 1853 the Hawaiian Board of Missions sent out 
its first band of missionaries to those shores, and 
these have been reinforced from time to time, and 
have been visited and encouraged by delegates of 
our Board. 

Our first station was at Omoa, on the island 
of Fatuiva, the south-east island of the group. 



164 Life in Hawaii. 

Afterward stations were taken on all the inhabited 
islands except Nuuhiva, where our American mission- 
aries labored in 1833. As a delegate, I have been per- 
mitted to visit this Mission twice, and have seen 
every island and every station of the group. 

My first visit was in i860. We sailed from Hilo, 
March 17, in the Morning Star No. 1, under com- 
mand of Captain J. Brown, and anchored in Vaitahu, 
or Resolution Bay, Tahuata, April 11. This bay 
forms a quiet and safe harbor on the leeward side of 
the island. It is half a mile wide and half a mile 
deep, walled on the right and left by lofty and rugged 
precipices some 2,000 feet high, with a beach of lava, 
sand, and shingle. From the shore a narrow and 
rough valley, one-eighth of a mile wide and one mile 
long, extends inland until it ends in a bold precipice 
some 2,500 feet high, rising on an angle of 45 to 50 . 
The island, like the rest of the group, is a great heap 
of scoria, tufa, cinders, and basaltic lavas, bristling 
with jagged points, traversed with sharp and angular 
ridges, and rent with deep and awful chasms. The 
valley is fertile, and well filled with the breadfruit, 
cocoa-palm, pandanus, hibiscus, and other trees and 
shrubbery. The orange, lemon, lime, vi, and guava 
have been introduced. 

The number of inhabitants upon Tahuata at the time 
of my visit was only 154, though it had once been 
several hundreds. We had one Hawaiian missionary 



My First Visit to the Marquesans. 165 

with his wife in this valley, and they were laboring 
patiently in a small school, but with little encourage- 
ment. The people seemed hardened against Chris- 
tianity, and no wonder, for in 1842 the French took 
possession of this bay, after having crushed the 
natives. They fortified the little rookery at great 
expense, and only to abandon it after seeing their 
mistake. They built a strong fortress upon a high 
bluff commanding the settlement and harbor, and 
mounted cannon on a high precipice on the right 
ridge of the valley to enfilade the village. They also 
built a house for a governor, a chapel, an armory, a 
bakery, etc. ; but when I was there, all was a scene 
of dilapidation and ruin. The garrison and most of 
the guns were removed ; a priest only remained. 

But small and unimportant as this island is, the 
French did not conquer it without loss of blood and 
treasure, On one attack, Captain Edouard Michel 
Halley, commander of a French corvette, was killed, 
with six of his marines, by the natives. All landed 
in martial order, formed a line, as reported to me, on 
the beach, and with drums beating, flags waving, 
fifes piping, and with bugle blast the line moved for- 
ward up the valley in full confidence of subduing the 
dark savages at a single blow. But as they advanced 
among the trees and jungle, on the right and on 
the left, from this bush and that, from behind tree 
and rock, and from overlooking cliffs came the shots 



1 66 Life in Hawaii, 

of an ambushed enemy. The deadly missives whizzed 
and struck. Six of the marines were killed, and 
also the captain. When the men saw their com- 
mander fall, they were struck with consternation and 
retreated to the ship. 

The remains of the fallen sailors were carried up 
near the head of the valley and buried. With the 
Hawaiian missionary and Captain Brown, I visited 
the cemetery. It is an area of about one-quarter of 
an acre, surrounded by a plastered wall, and full of 
bushes. Beside the tomb of the captain lie the 
remains of the marines, covered with slabs of basalt. 
We found the slabs tilted and sinking into the earth, 
and the surrounding walls falling. Dilapidation is 
setting its seal upon all these graves, and after sad 
reflections on the fate of the gallant heroes, we " left 
them alone in their glory." 

Why should the professed disciples of the " Prince 
of Peace " endeavor to propagate the Christian re- 
ligion by the use of fire and sword ? And why do 
men who call themselves " priests of the Most High 
God " call in the aid of weapons, and go and come 
and live under the cover of cannon? Did the Captain 
of our salvation teach His disciples such doctrines ? 

From Vaitahu we went to Hivaoa or La Dominica. 
The missionary at this station was the Rev. Samuel 
Kauwealoha, a native of Hilo, and a member of the 
Hilo church. He came out in his boat, boarding us five 



The Hivaoa Mission. 167 

or six miles from the shore, and gave us a most hearty 
•welcome. We landed on a beautiful beach of white 
sand, and walked half a mile through a charming 
grove of tropical trees, along the margin of a crystal 
brook. This runs through the whole length of the 
valley, which is one mile in length and one-fourth of 
a mile wide, enclosed on three sides with lofty and 
steep hills, and opening to the sea in front. It is a 
paradise of natural loveliness, charmed forever with 
the music of its rippling stream. 

We found Mr. Kauwealoha living in a substantial 
stone house, 25 by 44 feet, with walls ten feet high, 
a cellar, floor, glazed windows, and thatched roof, 
and all built by himself. He dived for the coral, 
burnt it into lime, hewed the blocks of basalt, made 
the mortar, and did all the work of the carpenter 
and mason. Here, amidst the shade of lofty trees, 
he was living with his devoted wife, teaching the 
children to read and write, and preaching "Christ 
our Life " to 149 savages ; and here, under the shad- 
ow of a towering tree, I spent one of the happiest 
Sabbaths of my life. The almost naked and tattooed 
savages came out and sat quietly in semicircles under 
the tree, with the bright-eyed little children in front, 
all seeming to love their teacher, and to welcome the 
stranger, to whom they listened, Kauwealoha inter- 
preting. When service was over, they came forward 
with outstretched hands and glistening eyes and gave 



1 68 Life in Hawaii, 

me their Kaoha, the same as the Hawaiian AloJia, 
" love and greeting." 

One service was. held at sunrise in the house ; the 
next service under the tree, at 10 A.M., when sixty 
were present. We had also a Sunday-school, where 
the pupils recited the Lord's prayer and the ten 
commandments, with some other lessons, in tones 
and inflections of voice which were soft and melo- 
dious. 

At 1 1 A.M. Captain Brown and his mate, Captain 
Golett, a good Christian man, who had commanded 
many a ship, came on shore with the crew of the 
Morning Star, and we had service in English. At 
4 P.M. another service was held with the natives, mak- 
ing four for the day, beside much time spent in con- 
versation with those of the islanders who lingered 
around and seemed tame and docile. 

The wilder savages would come up now and then 
to the outer side of our circle, half concealed among 
the trees, gaze at us with their keen black eyes, talk 
and laugh among themselves, strike fire and smoke 
their pipes, and then retreat a little into the bushes 
and lie down to sleep. Some were armed with mus- 
kets and spears, or bayonets fastened to poles. The 
men were naked, except the maro. The women wore 
a light drapery made from the paper-mulberry. 

Wars had raged in this valley, but after the ar- 
rival of the missionary, there had been quiet for 



Savage Fighting. 169 



a longer time than usual. It had been nearly a 
universal fact that the inhabitants of no two val- 
leys had lived in harmony. Every valley had its 
chief who was constantly watching the people of the 
valleys on either side of him. These were separated 
only by narrow and high ridges, upon the jagged crest 
of which enemies would lie in ambush in the night. 
As soon as the morning dawned they watched the 
huts below and fired upon the first one who came out 
of doors. 

Even in this little Eden-like valley there were 
two hostile clans, one at the head of it and the other 
near the shore. These watched each other, as the 
tiger of the jungle watches his prey, and when oppor- 
tunity offered they killed and ate one another. It was 
hoped that the presence of our missionary would pre- 
vent all further hostilities. Our hopes were vain. Be- 
fore my second visit to the Marquesas, a fiendish 
quarrel arose among the cannibals ; Kauwealoha's 
fine house was plundered and torn down, and he with 
his heroic wife fled the valley never to return. Thus 
the savages extinguished the rays of light which had 
begun to dawn upon them. 

On Monday, April 16th, we took our energetic 
friend, Kauwealoha, on board the Star, as my com- 
panion, guide, and interpreter, and sailed for the 
island of Fatuiva. At Omoa, its largest and most 

populous valley, was the resident missionary, J. W. 
8 



170 Life in Hawaii. 

Kaivi. It was at this station that our pioneer mis- 
sionaries were first landed, and here they labored to- 
gether for a long time before they separated to oc- 
cupy other islands. The fruits of these concen- 
trated labors are seen in the greater tameness of the 
people, especially of the children. 

On landing, I found myself surrounded with merry 
and bright-eyed boys and girls, all shouting in glee, 
" Kaoha, kaoha, ka mikiona " — Love, love, to the 
missionary. Many struggled to get hold of my 
hands to lead me to the house, and to please as 
many as possible, I offered a finger to one and an- 
other. Thus I was led by ten laughing children, 
while others caught hold of my arms, and elbows, 
and of the skirts of my coat, shouting kaoha, until 
we entered the house of Kaivi. Surely, thought I, 
here is material for a Christian civilization, and with 
wise and faithful training, these boys and girls may be- 
come kind and good men and women, and never kill 
and eat one another. I have not seen brighter or 
sweeter looking children than these on the Hawaiian 
Islands. 

Not the children only, but many of the adults 
rallied around and filled the house, while scores re- 
mained outside for want of room within. My heart 
was touched by the scene, it was so different from that 
on Vaitahu, when powder and iron hail had driven 
the people of the valley to madness. 



Omoa Valley. 171 

The valley of Omoa is three miles deep and, in 
some places, one mile wide, with five lateral branches 
half a mile or more deep, and like Hanatetuua, it 
is walled with towering precipices on both sides and 
in the rear, filled with magnificent trees, breadfruit, 
cocoanut, palm, candlenut, hibiscus, pandanus, banana, 
South Sea Island chestnut, orange, and others. The 
soil is of great richness. A fine stream of water, 
which runs the whole length of the valley, furnishes 
an excellent place for watering ships. 

The day after our arrival, Kaivi, Kauwealoha, 
Timothy, one of my Hilo church members who ac- 
companied me, and myself, took a stroll of four hours 
up the valley, and we were more and more delighted 
with its beauty and fertility. But we were every- 
where pained with the marks of savage idolatry and 
cannibalism. The number and nature of the tabus 
were shocking. We saw tabu houses, tabu trees, tabu 
hogs, tabu tombs, tabu places for offering human 
sacrifices, and tabu theaters or places for lascivious 
dances, where with midnight drums and infernal howl- 
ings the most obscene orgies were performed. These 
theaters are oblong spaces of 100 or 200 feet in length, 
and fifty feet in breadth, cleared, leveled, and some- 
times paved with slabs of basalt, and enclosed with 
a wall four to eight feet high and as many wide. On 
this broad parapet, or wall, the men are crowded to 
witness the lascivious dances in the space below, while 



172 Life in Hawaii. 

the masses of women are kept outside of the en- 
closure. 

Kauwealoha told me that he had sometimes stolen 
visits to these places of lust and blood and human 
sacrifices, and found them strewed with human bones, 
the remains of men who had been slaughtered, roasted, 
and eaten in part, and in part offered to the gods. 
These and scores of other tabus have their histories 
of cruelty and horror which I can not here find time 
and space to explain. But what was uttered by a 
prophet of old is still true : " The dark places of the 
earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." 

At an examination of the school of Omoa which 
we attended, forty boys and girls were present, and 
were examined in reading, writing, geography, arith- 
metic, and Scripture recitations. Some of the pupils 
read and wrote well, and many gave evidence of 
bright and active minds. I spoke to parents and 
children on the salvation through Christ and on the 
value of education. In the evening the little church 
of six members, together with the missionary Kaivi 
and his wife, and three from the Morning Star, par- 
took of the Lord's supper. Here were some of the 
first-fruits of the Gospel among the Marquesans. 
There sat the tall and dignified Natua, now baptized 
Abraham, with his quiet wife Rebecca. Abraham 
was a chief and a man of influence, and we hoped he 
might be the leader of many faithful disciples. The 



The Cannibals of Omoa. 1 7$ 

other members were Eve, a very aged woman, Joseph, 
Solomon and his wife Elizabeth. 

All these had eaten human flesh, and drank the 
blood of their enemies. They were now sitting at 
the feet of Jesus, and in their right minds, eating and 
drinking the emblems of that body which was broken, 
and that blood which was shed for man. It was a 
precious season, and one which may be remembered 
with joy during eternal ages. 

But notwithstanding the success which has attend- 
ed the Gospel and the school at Omoa, the large 
heathen party are still bloodthirsty cannibals, and 
always at war with the people in Hanavave, a valley 
five miles distant. The watchful belligerents kill and 
cook one another, whenever they can do it secretly. 
Only a short time before our visit a robber came 
within ten yards of the missionary's house to kill a 
woman who was alone in her hut. Kaivi and his 
wife heard the rustle of the dry fallen leaves and 
went out softly under cover of shrubs and descried the 
assassin, and began to throw stones, when he ran, 
and the woman was taken into Kaivi's house for pro- 
tection. On another dark night a blind woman was 
sleeping alone, her husband having gone on board of a 
vessel, when a cannibal with a long knife entered the 
house to dispatch her; but before the bloody deed was 
done, a large dog seized the monster, and in the struggle 
the neighbors were aroused, and the invader fled up 



174 Life in Hawaii. 

a steep precipice and escaped to his own place on the 
other side of the ridge. 

A spy also came to Omoa professing great love for 
the people and hatred for those of his own valley. 
So insinuating was he, that the Omoans were de- 
ceived, and adopted him as a friend. He became a 
favorite with parents and children, and after some 
days he invited two boys to go with him upon the 
ridge dividing them from Hanavave, where they 
would find ripe berries. The boys went cheerfully, 
and when they had ascended high and were out of sight 
of the people below, he drew a large knife, seized one 
of the lads, and severed his head from his body. 
The other boy fled for his life down the hill and gave 
the alarm, but the assassin went on and down to his 
valley with the bloody trophy in his hand. 

We visited the hostile Hanavave in two of the 
ship's boats, as the distance is only five miles, and 
the sea smooth. The natives of Omoa were afraid to 
go with us, lest they should be killed, but our Hawaiian 
missionaries are safe and free to travel where they 
please, so Kaivi went with us. 

The sail along the lofty sea-wall was delightful, 
and the white foaming streamlets rushing down deep 
and precipitous gorges, or leaping from a height of 
1,500 feet, presented a scene of exquisite beauty. 

Our missionaries in this valley are the Rev. Lot 
Kuaihelani and his wife. We examined a school of 



Hanavave Valley. 175 

twelve boys and girls under the care of Mrs. K., who 
taught them to read, write, and sing. Then after a 
season of prayer and exhortation with the people who 
came together, we took a stroll through the valley. 
It was a scene of charming loveliness, but most of the 
people looked wild and savage. 

Bare-legged soldiers were strutting about with old 
muskets, rusty swords, and bayonets fastened on 
poles, and all seemed to feel as important as imperial 
guards. Near the center of the valley we found a 
military captain with a squad of soldiers engaged on 
a zigzag fortification of stone six feet high, four feet 
thick, and nearly half a mile long, pierced with loop- 
holes for muskets. I asked the stern man in com- 
mand, why they fortified with so much labor and 
zeal. He replied, " To protect my people." " But 
suppose you make peace with your enemies and live 
quietly ? " "I can't ; they come in the night, and lie 
in their canoes behind the rocks, and when we rise in 
the morning they fire at us, and their bullets whiz 
and strike our trees and houses, and kill our men 
and women." "Yes, and you try to kill them."- 
" That's right ; we good, they bad. You go talk with 
our enemies in Omoa." " I have been there and told 
them to love their enemies and stop fighting, and 
they say yes if you will stop.". He replied, " They 
are bloody liars ; they will come to kill us, and I must 
defend my people." And then lifting up his foot, he 



176 Life in Hawaii. 

showed me a scar where a bullet had gone through 
his leg. Another came and turned his naked body to 
me, asking me to look at his shoulder-blade which 
had been pierced by a bullet, and then feel the ball 
lodged just within the skin of his breast. I examined 
and found it so. I said to him, " Let me cut that 
bullet out, it can easily be done." " No, no," said 
he, " I will always carry that bullet in my breast. It 
makes me strong to fight ! " 

Only three weeks before our arrival, there was a 
sea-fight between three double canoes of Hanavave 
valley and three whale-boats of Omoa. One man of 
the canoe party was shot through the body, and the 
canoes made a hasty retreat. 

We returned to the Star, and the next day sailed 
for Puamau, on the northern side of Hivaoa. This 
is the station of Rev. James Kekela and his good 
wife Naomi. 

Puamau is a large valley, with 500 inhabitants. 
With Kekela and Kauwealoha, I went all over it to 
its head, two miles inland, where it terminates in an 
abrupt precipice 2,000 feet high. We passed over 
hill and vale, and through forest and open spaces, 
and saw the houses and large numbers of people and 
many bright-eyed children. 

We visited the tabu houses and grounds, and in a 
forest of lofty trees we saw their great Heian, or 
place of feasting, dancing, and of offering human 



Stone Images at Puamau, 177 

sacrifices. Walled terraces were built up of large 
stones, and with great labor, and a paved floor was 
prepared for dancers, who with naked, oiled bodies, 
adorned with feathers and fantastic ornaments, keep 
up the most obscene orgies all night till daybreak. 

On these terraces stood several stone images of 
enormous size, in the form of men and women. 
Some had fallen, some were mutilated, but one stood 
perfect in gigantic proportions. This figure was nine 
feet high and three feet six inches in diameter, with 
head, eyes, mouth, neck, breast, trunk, and upper and 
lower limbs. The base of the stone was planted 
deep in the ground. It was made in ancient times, 
and brought half a mile from the quarry to this place. 
Probably it would weigh ten tons. The natives have 
been offered one hundred dollars to remove it to a 
ship, but the present generation know of no mechanical 
power to do it. 

It was to this place of infernal rites that Mr. 
Whalon, first officer of the American whale -ship 
Congress, was brought in 1864, bound hand and foot 
for slaughter, and to be devoured by savages. 

A Peruvian vessel had stolen men from Hivaoa, 

and the people were waiting for an opportunity to 

revenge the deed. Mr. Whalon went on shore to 

trade for pigs, fowls, etc., and the natives, under the 

pretence of hunting pigs, decoyed him into the 

woods, where, at a concerted signal, large numbers 
8* 



178 Life in Hawaii. 



of men had been collected. Mr. Whalon was seized, 
bound, stripped of his clothing, and taken to this 
heiau to be cooked and eaten. This was in the after- 
noon. The savages then began to torment him, 
bending his thumbs and fingers backward, pulling his 
nose and ears, and brandishing their hatchets and 
knives close to his head. Kekela, our missionary, 
was then absent, but a German, hearing of the affair, 
went to the place and begged the savages to release 
their victim. This, with ferocious grins, they refused 
to do, saying that they relished human flesh, and 
they were now to feast on a white man. On the 
return of Kekela the following morning, he hastened 
to the scene of action, and begged for the life of the 
poor man. But the savages were inexorable, unless 
for a ransom. They demanded Kekela's boat and all 
his oars. It is said that a chief of another clan ob- 
jected to the boat being taken from him, as they 
were often accommodated with it on going on board 
ships. 

Finally an exchange was effected among the con- 
tending cannibals, and for a gun and various other 
articles Mr. Whalon was released. The missionary 
took him to his house, and with his intelligent wife 
showed him the greatest kindness and attention. 

The ship, on account of this tragic event, had gone 
out to sea, keeping at a safe distance from land until 
the mate was brought on board with great rejoicing. 



A Fighting Congregation. 179 

Mr. Lincoln was then President of the United 
States. Hearing of this deed of Mr. Kekela and his 
helpers, he sent out the value of five hundred dollars, 
with a letter of congratulation, as a reward for the 
prompt and successful action which saved an Amer- 
ican citizen from death at the hands of Marquesan 
cannibals. 

Kekela had only twenty-six pupils in all, and those 
were very irregular in their attendance. We spent a 
Sabbath at Puamau, and I preached to fifty people 
inside of the house, while numbers were standing or 
walking outside, some looking in at the windows, 
some pacing to and fro, talking, laughing, or lying 
down, getting up, lighting pipes and smoking. Old 
warriors, fantastically decorated with feathers and 
sharks' teeth, and carrying axes, hatchets, spears, old 
muskets and rusty swords, and whalers' harpoons, 
scouted around us among the trees, with their sharp, 
black eyes glaring upon us, and anon disappearing in 
the thicket. 

In the afternoon I preached to an assembly of one 
hundred, who sat quietly before me under a large 
tree. Boys meanwhile were climbing trees around 
us, swinging upon the branches and chattering like 
monkeys, and noisy children were gamboling upon 
the ground. Guns were often fired during the day ; 
the ring of the tapa-beater was heard from the huts ; 
fishing canoes were scattered over the bay, and the 



180 Life in Hawaii. 

multitudes went on with their work or sport as on 
other days. There was no Sunday. 

Near Kekela's house there is a Catholic station ; 
but it was painful to hear that the priests do little 
to create respect for the Lord's day in the minds of 
the people. 

Several individuals appeared interested in religious 
instructions, and we believe that faith and love and 
patient labor will not be lost upon this benighted 
people. But they are a hard race, bold, independent, 
and defiant. The longer I remained, the more deeply 
I was impressed with the depravity into which they 
are sunk. In theft, in licentiousness, in guile, they 
are unrivaled ; in revenge they are implacable. 
They know no mercy, and their selfishness is un- 
mixed. 

Their government, so far as they have any, is feu- 
dal. Every valley has its chief ; some have twenty 
or thirty chiefs ; and feuds, robberies, wars, and 
bloodshed are the normal condition of the people. 
Scarcely a clan can live in peace with its neighbors. 
There are no laws to forbid or to punish crime 
Every man must be his own protector and avenger. 
If his wife is ravished, his house burned, his property 
stolen, he has no appeal but to his own arm, his own 
weapon, and the red vengeance which boils in his 
heart. If he is a weak man, he keeps a close mouth, 
lest a lance or a bullet pierce his heart. His only 



Marquesan Fashions. 181 

redress is to watch his opportunity and do as he has 
been done by. 

Among the men, tattooing, which is a long and 
painful process, is nearly universal. Their faces and 
bodies are so nearly covered with grotesque figures 
that they appear almost as black as Africans. 

The shaving of their heads is equally grotesque and 
fantastic. Some shave only the crown, or one side ; 
some leave a small tuft of hair on the apex only; 
others shave a zone quite around the center of the 
head, and others still shave several such belts. 

Were it not for these artificial disfigurations, the 
Marquesan physique would be fine. The males are 
tall and well formed, and dwarfishness and obesity 
are very uncommon with them. But at Puamau we 
saw one monstrous exception, a man with a full-sized 
head and body, with legs only one foot four inches 
long, and arms but one foot long. The limbs were 
of ordinary thickness. 

In the valley of Hanahi, Mr. James Bicknell, son of 
one of the English missionaries of the Society Islands, 
was stationed by his own request. Capt. Brown 
hearing that there was no safe harbor here, sent Mr. 
Bicknell's supplies in a boat, in which I took passage. 
This is a new station, with a population of only ninety 
souls, but there is a populous valley on each side of 
it. There was no school here, but Mr. Bicknell has 
one convert, whom he has baptized. The valley is 



1 82 Life in Hawaii. 

small, rocky, not well watered, and less inviting than 
the others that I visited. 

In 1859 a little boy was roasted alive in Hanahi as 
a sacrifice to the gods, and I was shown the place 
where this horrid deed was done. 

The romantic little valley of Hanatita, on the north 
side of Hivaoa, is occupied by the Rev. A. Kaukau 
and wife, Hawaiian missionaries. 

All the missionaries of the three islands met in 
this place to hold a convention. There were eight 
in all, with most of their wives and several dele- 
gates, representing 3,000 Marquesans and reporting 
34 church members, 221 pupils, 76 readers, 40 writers, 
67 in the outlines of geography, and 104 in arithmetic. 
The chief woman of Kauwealoha's station labored 
over the lofty ridges on foot with her 24 girls to 
attend this convention and examination. As all 
canoes and boats are rigidly taboo to the women, 
they have no other way to leave their valley except 
to climb the rugged steeps, or swim around the cliffs 
and headlands, resting now and then by clinging to 
some jutting crag or rock along the sea-walls. 

These twenty-four bright-eyed girls were neatly 
robed in a profusion of thin white tapa, worn loosely 
and tied in a large knot on the shoulder. Their hair 
was gathered into a crown on the top of the head, and 
confined by bands and nets of tapa so thin and deli- 
cate as to resemble gauze. Many of them wore deli- 



A Hard Climb. 183 

cate ear and wrist ornaments made by the natives. 
This picture looked like the dawn of civilization, and 
was in delightful contrast with most of the scenes I 
had witnessed in the group. After the examination of 
Kaukau's school of nine girls, we went on with the 
business of the convention, spending five days in de- 
liberations and discussions on a great variety of prac- 
tical questions, interspersed with frequent prayers. 
The meetings grew in interest from day to day, and 
the parting scene was touching. Every member of 
the convention offered prayer, and there was not a 
dry eye in the company. 

Learning that a landing could be effected at Hete- 
ani, on the south side of the island, where Paul Kapo- 
haku, " Paul the Rock," had been stationed, our cap- 
tain agreed to return the missionaries to Fatuhiva, 
and then sail round the eastern end of Hivaoa, and 
lie off and on opposite Heteani, while I with Mr. Bick- 
nell, Kapohaku, and his wife, should climb the heights 
of the mountain, some 3,500 feet, to visit that lone 
station where he would send in his boat to receive 
me on board. 

Early the next morning, May 1st, taking one of the 
ridges which led to the summit of the mountain, we 
commenced our toilsome ascent, sometimes on an 
angle of io°, and at other places of 30 to 40 . Our 
path led up steep and sharp ridges, down which on 
either hand we looked into depths of 500 or 1,000 feet 



184 Life in Hawaii. 

below. I measured the breadth of the spur or rib on 
which we ascended ; it was two feet and four inches 
wide in one part of the way ; in another it was only 
one foot in width, with awful gorges on either side. 
Mr. Darwin, describing a similar climb which he took 
in the island of Tahiti, says : " I did not cease to 
wonder at these ravines and precipices ; when viewing 
the country from one of the knife-edged ridges, the 
point of support was so small that the effect was 
nearly the same as it must be from a balloon." The 
extraordinary sharpness of these ridges and abruptness 
of these mountain slopes may be accounted for by 
the absence of violent storms in these groups, and 
more especially by the fact that there is never any 
frost to disintegrate these sharp ridges and fine-drawn 
peaks. 

After two hours of exhausting toil and heat we 
stood on the dividing ridge of the island. The sum- 
mit was a level plateau about half a mile broad, and 
covered in most part with a dense jungle of ferns, 
hibiscus and other trees and shrubs. Here we were 
shown the fighting grounds of the clans from the 
north, where they met those of the southern valleys, 
and engaged in deadly conflict with spears, clubs, 
and stones. Many of the abraded stones brought up 
from the shore were still seen scattered over the 
battle-field. 

The scene from this height was grand in the ex- 



Descent to He team. 185 

treme. At our feet lay the broad Pacific, shining 
like molten silver, and from this elevation showing no 
ripple. Around us was a vast panorama of cones, 
ridges, spurs, and valleys. Hills heaped on hills, and 
spires bristling among spires, the whole appeared as 
if a sea of molten rocks, while raging, tossing, and 
spouting in angry billows, had been suddenly solidified 
by an omnipotent power. It was a wild assemblage of 
hills and ridges, of gulfs and chasms, of towers and 
precipices. 

Our descent on the south side of the island occu- 
pied three and a half hours, and was even more diffi- 
cult than. the ascent, on account of the roughness of 
the trail. Over many steep declivities we had to 
let ourselves down over the rocks with the utmost 
caution ; one false step would have plunged us into 
certain destruction. But we arrived at the shore 
safe and weary at 4 P.M. 

We found the people of Heteani cordial, and our 
labors there were as at other places. Nowhere did 
we meet a more enthusiastic " kaoha! " But in all the 
valleys on this side of the island cannibalism is fear- 
ful. Paul showed me the place where he had wit- 
nessed the cooking and eating of human flesh by the 
heathen party, and he had no power to prevent it. 
He also told me shuddering stories of the fightings, 
the murders, and the fearful cannibalism which pre- 
vailed all around him. 



1 86 Life in Hawaii. 

On the morning of the 3d of May, the good Morn- 
ing Star came into the offing, and the boat landed 
and took me on board. 

Sailing down the smooth channel, three miles wide, 
which separates Hivaoa from Tahuata, we looked into 
all the valleys as we opened them, until we rounded 
the bluffs of Tahuata. On the 4th we were off the 
mouth of the spacious harbor Taiohai, the principal 
harbor of Nuuhiva. This bay is about two miles 
deep, half a mile wide at the entrance, between two 
grand headlands, and expanding to a mile in breadth 
as we came to the center. Its shore is a beautiful 
crescent of sand, interrupted here and there with 
shingle and boulders. 

The French, on seizing this island, fortified the 
harbor at great expense, and for many years kept up 
a strong garrison on the land with ships in the har- 
bor. They built a large arsenal, a house for a gover- 
nor, a cathedral for a bishop. We looked into the 
fort, and upon the shore battery cut into the rock, 
called on the bishop and the governor, saw all the 
public buildings, and rambled over the town. We 
also found the house where our missionary brethren, 
Armstrong, Alexander, and Parker, with their fami- 
lies, sojourned for eight months in 1833. But we 
found no war-vessels and no garrison except half a 
dozen gensd'armes. The shore battery was dis- 
mantled, the fort and other public works in a state 



Taiohai — The Tabic. 187 

of dilapidation, and the folly of making war on 
savages as a means of civilizing and Christianizing 
them was apparent. 

We also visited the grounds where the gallant 
Captain Porter of the United States ship Essex 
pitched his tents in 181 3, indulging his crew in those 
pleasures which were but the prelude to the day of 
slaughter which soon fell upon them in Valparaiso. 
The steep and lofty precipice was also shown us up 
which his marines were made to drag his cannon to 
thunder terror and death upon the poor Marquesans 
in an adjoining valley. 

The tabu system, in the Marquesas Islands as in 
other parts of Polynesia, is ancient, complex, and 
deeply rooted in the social and religious polity of the 
people. A few notes upon it may interest the stu- 
dent of the subject. The following are forms of the 
tabu : 

Toua, war. — When the men go to war it is tabu for 
the women to go out of doors to bathe, to attend 
to their toilet, or to eat more than is necessary to 
sustain life. The god of this tabu is Fu. 

Fae Pue, house of prayer. — This house is built and 
dedicated to the god Hiniti by a feast, at which 
swine's flesh and other food are offered to the god. 
No woman can ever enter this house, and no man ex- 
cept those who are invited to the dedication feast. 
After the dedication the fae pue is closed, signals are 



1 88 Life in Hawaii. 

placed upon it, and it is never again entered. I saw 
many of these houses. 

Teke, circumcision. — This must be done in a new 
or sacred house, dedicated to the god Nukukoko. 

Wauupoo, shaving the head. — This must be done 
in the sacred house, and no one must ever step on a 
lock of the hair. 

Utatapu, the hula or dance. — The actresses undergo 
long previous training, during which time their per- 
sons are sacred to the gods. 

Tahu, tattooing. — During this long and painful 
process the subject is shut up in a house with the 
operator, and may not be seen by his friends until he 
is healed. This often requires months. 

Boring the Ears. — The subject and the operator 
are closely confined in a sacred house, where offer- 
ings of food, fish, hogs, etc., are made to the gods. 

Tabu Food. — Poi pounded by a man is strictly ta- 
bu to women ; not so vice versa. Bananas, cocoanuts, 
squid, skipjack, and many other articles, must not be 
eaten by men and women together, though each may 
eat cocoanuts from separate trees. Food planted, 
cooked, or pounded by a child may not be eaten by 
the mother. 

Tabu Places. — Houses standing on posts, and all 
raised structures, as platforms and seats around hula 
or other public places, and stone structures for the 
pounding of poi, are tabu to women. 



Marquesan Tabus. 189 

All roads and paths made by men are tabu to 
women. 

Places of human sacrifice are tabu to all but priests. 
We could not get consent to visit one. 

Charnel houses are tabu to all but friends. 

Miscellaneous tabus. — Mats may never be carried 
or handled by men, though they sleep on them. 

When a man is in the cabin or hold of a vessel, it 
is tabu for a woman to be on deck. So of all other 
superposition. On board the Morning Star we had 
some droll scenes resulting from this tabu. 

The heads of all males are tabu. One day I igno- 
rantly laid my hand on the head of a man who sat on 
the ground beside me. He instantly started, shook 
his head, brushed off my hand, looked wild, and ran 
off as if his hair had been lighted with a lucifer 
match. I saw him no more. Seeing us laugh with 
incredulity at their faces, another man crawled up to 
my feet, took my hand and laid it on his head. Most 
of the Marquesans observe this tabu, though some 
are brave enough to despise it. 

Canoes are strictly tabu to women. They never 
sail in them, nor dare they touch them. This is a 
cruel tabu. If a woman wishes to visit a ship, she 
must swim to it. If she have wares to sell, as pigs, 
bananas, fowls, etc., she must swim them off to the 
vessel. All the women that came on board the 
Morning Star swam from the shore. If she wishes 



19c Life in Hawaii. 

to visit friends on another island, she can never do 
it ; if to go to another valley, she must climb rugged 
mountains and struggle over ridges where her life is 
in danger; or if the way by land be quite impassable, 
as is often the case, she must swim around bluffs and 
along the rugged shores until she reaches some point 
or crag where she can hold on and rest ; pursuing her 
way, endangered by sharks and by the surf, until she 
makes her port, or perishes in the attempt. 

It will be seen from the above, that the subjection 
and servitude of women are a principal feature of the 
tabu. 

Returning on board the Star, we bore away around 
the western side of Nuuhiva, looking into all the val- 
leys and dells as they opened one after another to our 
view. Among others, we passed the famed valley of 
Taipi (Typee), the scene of Herman Melville's narra- 
tive drawn from the life. Bearing away for Hawaii, 
we dropped anchor in Hilo on the 16th of May, 
having been absent just two months. 

On this visit to the Marquesas I gathered, from 
the reports of the missionaries at their general con- 
vention, the following statistics : 

The whole number of pupils, more or less, under 

their instruction, 221 

Whole number of readers, 76 

" " of writers, ...» 40 

" " in rudiments of geography, ... 68 

" " in mental arithmetic, 125 



Some Results. 191 



Whole number of church members, 34 

" " of the population to whom they 

had access, 2,800 

These results, though on a small scale, seemed 
encouraging, compared with the long, repeated, and 
unfruitful efforts which had been made before, and 
there seemed hope that, by patience and persever- 
ance, many of these savages might be tamed, and 
the diabolical and bloody rites which had been prac- 
ticed from time immemorial be utterly abolished. 

The laws enacted and enforced by the French 
governors in the Marquesas have checked murders 
and cannibalism wherever they could be brought to 
bear upon the guilty. And some of the governors 
have been liberal in their sentiments, and willing that 
the savages should be tamed and Christianized by 
any who would undertake the self-denying task. 



XIV. 

Second Visit to the Marquesas — The Paumotu Archi- 
pelago — Arrival at Uapou — An Escape by Two 
Fathjms — Nimhiva — Hivaoa — Kekela's Ti ials — 
Savage Seducers — A Wild Audience. 

ON the 3d of April, 1867, I embarked again, on 
board the Morning Star No. 2, to revisit 
our Marquesan mission. The Star was commanded 
by the Rev. Hiram Bingham, Jr., who had brought 
her out from Boston, and who was still her cap- 
tain. My associate delegate was Rev. B. W. Par- 
ker, and we had for fellow-passengers Mrs. Bingham 
and Mr. Parker's daughter, and a daughter of our 
missionary Kekela. 

We also had on board the body of Joseph Tiietai, 
one of the first converts of Omoa, who had died at 
Honolulu while on a visit there. 

In 1865 Mr. Bicknell left the Marquesas and re- 
turned to Oahu, bringing with him seventeen Mar- 
quesans, male and female, in order to train them on 
the Hawaiian Islands, and then return them to teach 

their people. Of these seventeen, nine died within 
(192) 



Second Voyage to the Marquesas. 193 

two years, and the eight who survived were anxious 
to return to their old homes. We therefore took 
them on board. They were all baptized before they 
left Oahu, Mr. Bicknell recommending them as con- 
verts to Christianity. On our eighth day from Hilo, 
Meto, the wife of one of the returning Marquesans, 
died after a sickness of several weeks, professing her 
faith in Jesus. At four P.M. the corpse, having been 
prepared for burial, the Morning Star, as she was 
rushing along at the rate of nine knots an hour, was 
hove to, and lay quietly on the bosom of the deep, as 
if conscious of the power, and listening to the voice 
of Him who " rules the raging of the sea." All hands 
were assembled in the cabin, and appropriate services 
were held, when the remains of the poor woman were 
committed to the deep, to be seen no more until 
" the sea shall give up her dead." 

It was a solemn scene, and the first of the kind 
I had ever witnessed. All the attendant circum- 
stances of committing a fellow-being to a lone grave 
in the deep and dark waters of a vast ocean com- 
bined to impress us with the worth of man. The 
winds, the waves, the inanimate ship, and all sur- 
rounding objects, seemed to pause, and, with rational 
beings, to bow in silent reverence before Him whose 
high behest remands our bodies to the grave and calls 
our spirits before His bar. 

Sleep, Meto, in thy cold and silent tomb, and let 
9 



194 Life in Hawaii, 

the waves of mid-ocean roll over thee ! They shall 
not disturb thy quiet slumbers until the voice of the 
archangel calls thee from thy long repose. Thou wast 
once blind, and a savage, but " the day-spring from on 
high " dawned upon thee ere thou wast called away, 
and we have hope for thee that thou wilt appear a 
shining angel among the joyous throng who have 
been redeemed from among all nations and kindreds 
and peoples and tongues. 

On the 2 ist of April we made the Paumotu Archi- 
pelago, a group of about one hundred atolls, or coral 
reefs, enclosing lagoons. This group lies between 
the Marquesas and the Society Islands. Their name, 
Paumotu, signifies " all islands." Those that we 
sighted were Taroa and Taputa, in lat. 14 22 / south, 
and Ion. 144 58' west. We sailed within two miles 
of the shore, and saw the beautiful islets resting like 
swans upon the smooth water, while the rippling 
wavelets lapped the white beach, and the palm and 
emerald shrubbery adorned the coral ring. 

Different islands of this archipelago were discovered 
by different navigators and at various times: by Qui- 
nos, in 1606; Maire and Schouter, in 1616; Roggewein, 
in 1722 ; Byron, in 1765 ; Wallis and Carteret, in 1767 ; 
Cook, in 1769, 1773, and 1774; Bougainville, in 1763 ; 
Boenecheo, in 1772 and 1774; Edwards, in 1791 ; 
Bligh, in 1792; Wilson, in 1797; Turnbull, in 1803. 
Later and more careful observations have been made 



Arrival at Uapou. 195 

on this beautiful group by Kotzebue, in 18 16; Bel- 
lingshausen, in 1 8 19; Duperry, in 1823; Beechey, in 
1826; Fitzroy, in 1835 ; and Wilkes, in 1841. Wilkes 
estimated the population at 10,000. The people were 
represented as in a semi-savage state. The islands 
are all of coral formation, and were built up by that 
silent and wonder-working architect, the so-called 
coral insect. 

Our view of these islands, garlanded with green, 
and shining under a tropical sky, was enchanting, 
but the moral picture was dark. Why are these 
thousands of immortal beings left to perish in igno- 
rance, poverty, and paganism ? 

The Star went about and stood off from the shore, 
and in a short time these beautiful gems of the Pa- 
cific, with their white beaches, their silvery lagoons, 
and their emerald chaplets sunk below the horizon 
and disappeared, and we bade adieu to the charming 
sight with a sigh. 

Our first anchorage at the Marquesas Islands was 
on the 28th of April, in the bay of Hakahekau, island 
of Uapou. The Rev. Samuel Kauwealoha, whom we 
left in i860 in his beautiful valley and nice stone 
house at Hivaoa, and who, as before reported, was 
driven out by savage war, had come with his wife 
and a few Marquesan friends to this island, which had 
not been occupied before by our missionaries. 

Before we had anchored he came on board the 



196 Life in Hawaii, 

Star, and in an ecstasy of delight, welcomed us to 
his simple home. He piloted our vessel into the har- 
bor, where she was anchored. We sat down to din- 
ner after prayers and thanksgiving, supposing that all 
was well. On rising and going on deck, Capt. Bing- 
ham perceived that the Star had dragged her anchor. 
The current was strong, and the wind was blowing 
in squalls from one side of the bay to the other. 
Every strong gust caused the anchor to drag, and we 
were going slowly but surely toward a jagged and rock- 
bound shore. All hands were called, a kedge was 
carried out from the bows and planted in the bay, to 
check the drag ; but anchor, kedge, and schooner were 
all moving at every gust toward the shore, on which 
the vessel must, if not arrested, be smashed like a 
cockle-shell. 

A line was coiled into the boat, with one end fast- 
ened to the capstan, and with this the men in the 
boat struggled for an hour or more against the wind 
and current, before they could reach the opposite 
shore. At last they gained it when the stern of the 
vessel was only about two fathoms from the frowning 
rocks, on which the surf dashed high and fearfully. 
They made the line fast to the rocks on shore, 
and men at the capstan began to turn, slowly and 
carefully at first, fearing that the line would part, 
which would have resulted in sure and swift de- 
struction to our beautiful Morning Star. But she 



A Narrow Escape. igj 

began to move slowly to the windward, and our 
hearts beat with hope and joy at every foot gained. 
At length she was moored by a hawser to the rocks 
on the windward shore of the harbor and our agony 
was over. It was near night, and the natives on 
shore had waited in vain to welcome us, and to at- 
tend divine service, it being Sunday ; several, how- 
ever, came off in their light canoes to help us. The 
tact and great strength of Kauwealoha, and the help 
of his boat and crew, were of great service to us ; 
indeed without this help our escape might have been 
impossible. 

At evening we went on shore and held service in 
the missionary's house. On the next day we explored 
and admired the beautiful valley of Hakahekau. It 
is three miles long and one-fourth of a mile wide, 
with a limpid brook babbling through its whole 
length. The whole valley is crowded with magnifi- 
cent trees, evergreen vines, and shrubbery. 

The mountains, hills, ridges, spurs, domes, and 
lofty cones of this island are very grand. Within a 
vast amphitheatre of rugged hills which send down 
their spurs to the shore, buttressed by lofty precipices, 
are eight remarkable columns, two hundred to three 
hundred feet high, and fifty to one hundred feet in 
diameter, rising in solitary grandeur, and standing 
against the sky. They give the island the appearance 
of a castellated fortress, and are landmarks which may 



198 Life in Hawaii. 



be seen far at sea, marking the bay. The fantastic 
mountain forms in the Marquesas Islands are amazing. 

The population in 1853 was supposed to be 1,000 
but ten years later the small-pox carried off most of 
the people, so that only 300 remain, and this luxuriant 
valley is nearly depopulated. Not a house remains in 
the upper part, and only five or six are clustered along 
the shore. Thousands of ripe cocoa-nuts and bread- 
fruits fall to the ground and rot, for want of hands to 
gather and mouths to eat them. Solitude and silence 
reign in the old heiaus, and on the grounds where 
midnight fires once burned, where human sacrifices 
were offered, where the lascivious dance and the wild 
orgies of heathen souls made the groves resound, 
where the shouts of the warrior were heard, where 
the hulahiila drum beat during the livelong night, 
and where dark savage forms move like ghosts 
amidst the spectral gloom. Those baleful fires are 
extinguished, and the voice of revelry is hushed in 
death. But, alas ! darkness still broods over the few 
who remain on this island. We will, however, hope 
and pray for brighter days. 

Leaving Uapou, we crossed the channel twenty- 
two miles and anchored in Taiohai, Nuuhiva. We 
had heard that the French government in Tahiti was 
displeased because Mr. Bicknell had taken a number 
of Marquesans to Oahu, without first asking leave. Our 
mission at this time was to explain to the governor 



Taipi {Typee) Valley. 199 

that the Marquesans had been taken to Honolulu 
only to be instructed, and the explanation satisfied 
his excellency. 

On the 30th of April we sailed from Uapou to 
Nuuhiva, twenty-two miles due north. At Taiohai, 
or Port Anna Maria, the principal harbor of the island, 
we took a French pilot, Mr. Bruno, who brought us 
to anchor at 5 P.M. Taiohai is a noble bay and safe 
harbor, some two miles deep and one mile wide, but 
narrower at the entrance. The views in this bay are 
enchanting. The peaks of the island rise to the 
height of 3,860 feet. Almost every pinnacle is car- 
peted with grass and mosses, or festooned with vines ; 
even on the perpendicular walls of the precipices a 
tapestry of shrubs and verdure hangs. This is the 
harbor where Capt. Porter, of the Essex, reveled in 
181 3. From this bay, in 1842, the gifted Herman 
Melville, with his friend Toby, absconded to the hills, 
and made his devious and toilsome way to the Taipi 
valley, from which, in spite of its paradise-like beauty 
and its bewitching enchantments, he was but too glad 
to escape. I saw the valley he threaded, the cane-brake 
through which he struggled, the ridge he bestrode, 
the jungle where he concealed himself, and the tower- 
ing summit over which he passed. Melville lost his 
reckoning of distances as well as his track. The en- 
chanted valley of Taipi, Melville's " Typee," is only 
four hours' climb by the trail from Taiohai ; and from 



200 Life hi Hawaii. 

ancient times there has been a well-known trail from 
the head of one valley to the other. This of course 
the young fugitive did not find. The distance is not 
over five miles, and the Marquesans walk it, or rather 
climb it, in three or four hours. The valley of Hapa, 
(Mr. Melville's Happar) lies between Taipi and 
Taiohae, and is only two or three hours' walk from 
the latter. These three valleys are all on the south 
side of the island, and adjoin each other. During all 
his four months of romantic captivity, the gifted 
author of " Typee " and "Omoo" was only four or 
five miles distant from the harbor whence he had fled. 
We called on the bishop, who received us polite- 
ly, and entered into free conversation with us, and 
with two English gentlemen, residents, we visited the 
French nunnery. The Lady Superior received us 
with great urbanity, and introduced us to the two 
Sisters. The Superior was a large woman, of fair 
complexion and dignified bearing. All of the ladies 
were ideals of scrupulous neatness in their attire. 
Their institution was inclosed with a high wall of ba- 
salt, in which two buildings of thatch, some sixty feet 
each, were erected, with school-rooms, dormitories, 
kitchen, and chapel. The grounds were ample and 
well kept, and there was an air of neatness about the 
whole establishment. The number of girls was re- 
ported to us as sixty, ranging in ages from four to 
fifteen years. They are taught to read and write, to 



The Island of Uahitna. 201 

sew and embroider, and to gather breadfruits, cocoa- 
nuts, etc., and to cook their own food. The expenses 
of this institution are borne by the French Govern- 
ment, and the annual estimate is $120 for each girl. 

The island of Uahuna is thirty miles east of 
Nuuhiva. Here, on the 3d of May, our mission- 
aries, Laioha and his wife, welcomed us to their 
thatched cottage, and the people were called to- 
gether by the sound of the horn. Donning their 
light tapas, they came streaming in from all the jun- 
gle trails of the valley, bringing their children for ex- 
amination. Boys, girls, and adults gathered around 
us with beaming faces, grasping our hands and salut- 
ing us with their melodious " Kaoha." Thirty-two 
pupils were examined, after which we held religious 
services, and celebrated the Lord's supper as was our 
habit at the various stations. We then returned to 
the Star, taking with us Laioha, and Jose, a Peruvian 
whom I had baptized at Puamau in i860, when he 
took the name of David. 

The history of this David Jose after his baptism 
was interesting. Desiring to labor for Christ, he went 
of his own accord in 1863 to Hooumi, a valley adjoin- 
ing Taipi, on Nuuhiva, where he labored earnestly 
and without pay to convert the people to Christ, 
working with his own hands to supply his bodily 
wants. He collected thirty pupils, who were greatly 
attached to him, and for whom he had high hopes. 

9* 



202 Life in Hawaii 

Soon the small-pox struck the people with the blast 
of death. Consternation seized the multitude, and 
leaving friends and relatives to their fate, many fled 
to the mountains or wherever else they might hope 
for shelter. And faithful David had forty cases un- 
der his care with no one to help him. Of these, 
twenty died, and he buried them all with his own 
hands. He labored on until 1866, when the French 
sold the valleys of Hooumi, Taipi, and Hapa, adjoin- 
ing one another, to a company who ordered David to 
leave. 

Again we crossed the channel to the valley of Ha- 
namenu, on the island of Hivaoa. Here we landed 
the six surviving Marquesans, brought from Honolu- 
lu, who belonged to this place. On landing, there 
was a rush to the shore and a great wailing. Fathers, 
mothers, brothers, and sisters wailed fearfully for 
their kindred who had died on Oahu. Soon, however, 
were heard the thuds of the falling breadfruits, and 
the squealing of pigs, and a great feast was prepared 
in a short time. 

Mr. Bicknell had made Hanamenu one of his sta- 
tions, and had labored earnestly with the people. 
Kekela also, and Kauwealoha had visited this beauti- 
ful valley, and many of the people seemed tamed. A 
Marquesan catechist was stationed here, and taking 
the old hopeful converts, and those just returned from 
Oahu, we were requested to organize a church at this 



A Discouraged Missionary. 203 

station. This was done, and Kekela was chosen pas- 
tor for this church of ten members, seven men and 
three women. 

On our way from Taiohai to Puamau we had heard 
of savage war in this valley, and had been warned 
to approach it carefully. Kauwealoha and others ad- 
vised us not to land until Kekela came on board to 
report, as the only safe landing-place had been in the 
hands of savages hostile to the friends of Kekela. So 
we kept off and on, outside. At length two boats 
came out of the harbor ; one steering westward soon 
disappeared, and Kekela came alongside in the other, 
informing us that the westward-bound boat was the 
last of a large fleet of war canoes returning to their 
own valleys. Kekela leaped on board with tears, and 
was surprised to find his daughter, who came passen- 
ger with us, weeping on his neck. 

He told us that the war had just ended, that the 
last fighting had been three days before, that the peo- 
ple who for months had been hidden in caves and in 
fastnesses, were now crawling out, and that the canni- 
bal chief who had been so eager to eat Mr. Whalon 
was shot dead on the previous Sunday. So the door 
was opened to us, and just in time for our entrance. 

Kekela seemed discouraged. The war had demoral- 
ized his people. He had no church, his school was 
broken up, his congregation dispersed, his pigs and 
potatoes were stolen, his mules and donkey killed and 



204 Life in Hawaii. 

eaten, and one of his out-houses burned ; bullets had 
struck his house, and several nocturnal attempts had 
been made to burn his large stone dwelling, and this 
had been saved only by vigilant night- watching. 
After doing what we could to calm and encourage 
the peace party, we took Kekela and wife with four 
children and sailed for Atuona, a station on the south 
side of Hivaoa, and occupied by Mr. Hopuku and 
wife. 

We examined a school, organized a church of five 
members, found an interesting people and good work- 
ing missionary and his wife, and left the valley, im- 
pressed with the great romantic beauty of its natural 
scenery and its luxuriant growth of tropic trees, and 
with a hope in its moral advancement. We sailed the 
same evening for Omoa, Fatuiva, where we were to 
carry the remains of Joseph Tiietai, one of their chiefs 
and an early convert to Christianity. Here again we 
had been warned to approach the bay with caution, 
because it had been reported that the people were 
greatly exasperated at the death of this chief, and of 
a number of others of the valley, in Oahu. The Star 
was kept out at a good distance from land to watch the 
movements on shore, for it was said that armed boats 
and canoes would come out to take her. Soon, how- 
ever, Kaivi's boat was alongside, bringing good old 
Abraham, a brother of Joseph, and several others. 
By them we were assured that it was safe to land, as 



Visit to 0?noa. 205 



they had succeeded in quieting and reassuring the 
people, who had been very angry and threatening. 

The remains of the chief were taken on shore and 
received by his friends with loud wailings. All the 
night after the funeral exercises were held, the most 
fearful wailings were kept up, especially by his sister. 
Men and women tore their hair, and cut themselves 
with sharp bamboos till they were smeared with blood. 

The next day, May 12, being Sunday, we sat up 
until midnight to converse with the people who came 
in, to examine candidates for the church, and Mr. 
Hapuku for ordination. On the morrow the ordina- 
tion took place ; seventeen candidates were baptized 
and received to the church on profession of faith, and 
one by letter. Ten had been received before, making 
the whole number gathered into this church twenty- 
eight. Of these four had died. The Lord's supper 
was then administered to about forty communicants, 
representing seven nationalities. 

The decrepit Eve Hipahipa of fourscore years was 
brought in in the arms of friends. She clasped our 
hands in both of hers, and with tears and a fervent 
kaoha laid them on the top of her head as if to ask a 
benediction. 

At the general meeting held in this place, where 
the Star remained five days, it was resolved that Mr. 
Kekela endeavor at once to establish a boarding-- 
school for boys, and Mr. Kauwealoha one for girls, at 



2c6 Life in Haivaii. 

their respective stations. The Omoa school was 
examined. It had gained since our former visit fifteen 
pupils and sixteen readers. 

On Friday, May 17th, there was a rush and roar of 
the savages, and we were startled by loud shouts 
coming down the valley. On looking out I saw a 
large company of tattooed savages carrying a canoe to 
the sea. It was covered with a broad platform of 
bamboo, on which was erected a small round house 
covered with mats. In the canoe were a live pig, a 
dog, and a cock, and breadfruit, cocoanuts, poi, etc. 
The canoe was ornamented with trappings, and rigged 
with a mast, a sprit, and a sail of kapa. Naked swim- 
mers, with much noisy demonstration, launched this 
singularly equipped craft, and pushed it out, through 
a roaring surf, into the open sea. There the swim- 
mers left it, and returned to the shore. The canoe, 
left to the tide, drifted slowly out of the bay. But 
the wind not being favorable, it struck on the north- 
ern headland of the harbor, advancing upon the rocks 
and then receding ; borne, like a ram, by the rush 
and the retreat of the surf. Seeing the danger it was 
in, a native ran to the point and shoved off the strug- 
gling craft, when, the wind filling its sail, it headed 
out seaward, moved off, and disappeared. 

I had a long talk with Teiiheitofe, a high chief, 
about the ceremonial of this canoe. He said that it 
was a last offering to their god, Kauakamikihei, on 



Sad and Fruitless Errand. 207 

the death of the prophetess or sorceress, and that this 
sacrifice propitiated the god, expiated their sins, 
and closed the koina, or tabu, which had then lasted 
six weeks. During this koina " all servile work and 
vain recreations are by law forbidden." 

While the Star was at Omoa, I revisited Hana- 
vave on a sad and fruitless errand. The wife of one 
of our missionaries had been enticed by two young 
savages, brothers, and she was living with them 
among the trees up the valley. Although warned of 
danger, as these seducers were desperate, I was deter- 
mined to seek for her, and beg her to go with me to 
the Star and to her husband and children. I found 
her forlorn and desiring to return ; but she said she 
feared her seducers, as they would surely kill her be- 
fore they would let her go. While we talked, the 
young savages came in, armed with sheath-knives, and 
took seats so as to look her full in the face, keeping 
their keen eyes fixed on her. She dared not speak 
again. Through an interpreter I labored with them, 
but they were relentless, and their prey was fast. I 
left them with a heavy heart, wishing that some 
power might release her from their grasp. Poor 
woman ! she died in misery not long after. 

It is sad to relate that the wife of Kaivi of Tahuata 
came to a similar end. 

The Star returned to the stations of Hapuku and 
Kekela to land these brethren, and at Puamau, it 



208 Life in Hawaii. 

being Sabbath morning, Mr. Parker and I went on 
shore to attend service, while the Star remained out- 
side. We were happily surprised to find more than 
a hundred collected under some large trees to hear 
the Gospel. It was a wild group. Just from the 
war, many of the men were still armed with their 
formidable weapons. Before service, Kekela's house 
was jammed full of men, women, and children, filling 
every room with their grotesque figures and the odors 
of their pipes. They were like the frogs of Egypt ; 
no place was sacred. 

We had much talk with groups and individuals. 
One old warrior, Meakaiahu, heavily tattooed, held 
quite an earnest debate with me. When I spoke to him 
on the beauty of peace, and said that we should love 
our enemies, he answered, " No, no ; we should hate our 
enemies and kill them." When I urged the example 
and teachings of Christ, he shook his head, and said, 
" What if I love my enemy and he shoot me f n 

I urged and illustrated the reciprocal law of love, 
and how it begets love. He seemed to feel the truth, 
and began to yield. He said, " I have killed five 
men ; I have a bullet in my body, but I will listen to 
you and fight no more." 

He then requested me to talk with his chief and 
persuade him to give up fighting. He took my hand, 
pressed it hard, looked up into my face from under a 
great leaf which screened his eyes, and said with em- 



A Marquesan Disputant. 209 



phasis, "KaoJia oc" "love to thee." Holding on to 
my hand, he led me through a crowd of steaming 
natives to his chief, a tall, old man named Moahau, 
introduced me to him, and watched our conversation 
with eager interest. The old chief was friendly, but 
witty and skeptical. When urged to abandon his 
former habits and become a Christian, he replied : " I 
am too old to change my life ; let the children go 
with the missionaries ; it is too late for us old folks." 

When told that Jesus loved all ; that He died for 
the old and the young; that He would take all who 
obeyed Him to heaven, where there is no hunger, no 
sickness, no war, no bullets or barbed spears, or 
death, he replied, with a twinkle of the eye : " That 
will be a good place for cowards and lazy folks who 
are afraid to fight and too lazy to climb breadfruit 
and cocoanut trees." This shrewd wit excited a laugh 
in the listening crowd. But order was soon restored, 
and taking the old man's hand in one of mine, and 
the warrior's in the other, I begged them to unite on 
the side of the Prince of Peace, and to use their in- 
fluence to prevent wars, cannibalism, and idolatry, and 
to cheer and help their good teachers, Kekela and 
Naomi. The old man yielded and said : " I will stand 
by my friend, the warrior, and by Kekela ; and now 
let us go out and hear you talk to us under the trees." 

The horn sounded and the people flocked together, 
and for an hour, while Mr. Parker and myself ad- 



210 Life in Hawaii. 

dressed them, the attention was unusually marked. 
When we pronounced the services ended, the old 
chieftains shouted out : " No ! no ! We are not weary. 
We want to stay and talk with you." To this call 
there was a hearty response from all, and we remained 
until near sundown, while hands were raised from all 
parts of the group, and voices called out, " Come Jure, 
come to vie, come and talk to us" The scene was 
marvelous, and we felt that the Lord was there. 

Kekela, who had been greatly depressed and had 
well-nigh given up all hope, was wonderfully en- 
couraged. He proposed a meeting in the evening 
and the communion of the Lord's supper, saying: "I 
have seven candidates for the church of long stand- 
ing, but the war and the confusion had so dishearten- 
ed me, that I was on the point of giving all up as lost." 

The seven were examined, approved, and baptized, 
and with those who had been baptized five to seven 
years before, making ten in all, we commemorated 
the death of our Lord. It was a precious season, " a 
night long to be remembered." 

The French have made several wholesome laws for 
the islands, forbidding wars, murder, cannibalism, 
sorcery, etc., on the leeward, or northwest islands, in- 
cluding Nuuhiva, Uapou, and Uahuna. These laws 
were beginning to take effect. 

We had to carry back Laioha and Kauwealoha, 
who had been with us all the time among the islands 



Decline of the Marquesan Mission. 211 

as guide, interpreter, and companion, to their stations. 
When this was done, we offered thanksgivings to 
God for our safe and prosperous voyage ; and then, 
with all sails set, the prow of our good vessel was 
turned to the northwest, and we left the Marquesas, 
where we had spent twenty-three days. We anchored 
at Hilo on June 6, 1867. 

The number added to the Marquesan churches dur- 
ing this visit of the Star was forty-eight. The whole 
number from the beginning was sixty-two. 

In closing the history of my visits to this group, I 
can not forbear expressing regrets that the mission 
has been so depleted. In September, 1880, we had 
only three laborers with their wives in that field. 
The broad opening to the west, the call for laborers, 
for funds, and for the services of our missionary 
packet, have led many of the friends of missions on 
our islands to feel that we can not afford to send out 
reinforcements to the Marquesas, or to spare the 
Morning Star to make an annual or biennial trip 
with a delegate to that group, and so out of ten 
stations which we once occupied, only three remain 
with teachers. 

The commencement of our work there was auspi- 
cious, and its progress and fruits were encouraging, 
more so than of the mission to the Society Islands, 
or to China, or to many other parts of the world. 

But as it is said in Scripture, "The destruction of 



212 Life in Hawaii, 

the poor is his poverty," so we must say of our 
work. And this is the wail over all the earth, — want 
of laborers to gather the harvest, and want of material 
means to give strength, courage, and due success to 
the weary toilers in the field. Our three missionaries 
in the Marquesas are doing what they can, and there 
is still encouragement that war, idolatry, and cannibal- 
ism would soon cease, could we but continue the Gos- 
pel work among that people. 



XV. 

Visit to the United States — Salt Lake — Chicago — 
Washington City — Brooklyn — Old Killing-worth — 
Changes in the Homestead — Passing Away —Return 
to Hilo — Death of Mrs. Coan. 

AFTER an absence of more than thirty-five years 
from the United States, we were persuaded by 
the kind solicitations of friends, and by a repeated in- 
vitation from the American Board, to return for a visit. 
The health of Mrs. Coan being precarious, and no med- 
ical skill at the Islands affording relief, it seemed the 
more desirable to go. 

We arrived at San Francisco May 5, 1870. Spend- 
ing fourteen days in California, we took an Eastern 
train, spent a Sabbath at Salt Lake City, saw the 
Prophet and several of his apostles, met several 
of the Mormon missionaries whom we had seen in 
Hilo, attended service in the great tabernacle, heard 
much bold assertion without proof, and witnessed a 
singular observance of the Lord's supper, the elements 
being distributed by laughing boys, while a speaker 

was haranguing the audience without making a single 

(213) 



214 Life in Hawaii. 

allusion to the death of Christ, or to the ordinance 
which commemorated that event. We also saw the 
foundation of the great temple, which a bold de- 
claimer said was a literal fulfillment of the prophecy 
of Isaiah ii. 2 : that " the mountain of the Lord's 
house shall be established in the top of the mount- 
ains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and all na- 
tions shall flow unto it." 

The speaker affirmed that this prediction was now 
fulfilled before the eyes of the Mormons, and all the 
people shouted Amen. 

We spent a little time in Iowa, and arrived in 
Chicago June 1st. Here I was called to labor more 
abundantly, and here we met many warm friends, 
and two sons of our esteemed associates Mr. and 
Mrs. D. B. Lyman ; one of them a physician of 
prominence, the other a lawyer. In this marvel- 
ous city we spent two weeks, and then came east- 
ward. In all, we visited more than twenty States 
and Territories, everywhere finding multitudes of 
Christian friends ; many of whom we had seen be- 
fore, and many more whom we had not seen in the 
flesh, but who were fathers and mothers, brothers and 
sisters and friends in Christ Jesus. 

We found our country, broad, fertile, populous, and 
wealthy. It had extended from ocean to ocean ; its 
villages, towns, and cities had multiplied, and its 
population increased beyond a parallel in history. Its 



The States Revisited. 215 



schools, its colleges, its churches, and its humane and 
benevolent institutions had multiplied marvelously. 
Its railroads formed a web-work over all the land, 
and its telegraphic wires were quivering through the 
atmosphere. Its progress in science, in art, in dis- 
covery, in intelligence, in invention, in wealth, and in 
Christianity, seemed to make it the pride of all lands. 

And yet the scars of war were everywhere. The 
empty sleeves, the crutches, the trunks without a leg, 
the sightless eyes, the disfigured faces, were marks of 
the gha-stly wounds of war. And then the dead of 
Gettysburg, Arlington Heights, and other silent heca- 
tombs, the youth, the strength of the country ; the 
millions that sleep in dust to be numbered no more 
among the sons, the fathers, the husbands, the citi- 
zens of our beloved land ! 

But our country needed this fiery chastisement, 
and it will be better in the end if so be that the 
North and South understand and profit by the lesson. 

Our social intercourse, not only with personal 
friends and old acquaintances, but with a multitude 
of new-formed friends, was precious and endearing. 
It would be a great gratification to mention names, 
were it possible, and to record our tribute of grati- 
tude and thanks to God for the many kind and Chris- 
tian attentions shown us everywhere — attentions that 
left impressions on our hearts which time and space 
can not eradicate. 



216 Life in Hawaii. 

My opportunities to meet Christian conventions 
and associations, Sabbath-schools, Monday meetings 
of clergymen, meetings of benevolent societies, of 
working-women, etc., were numerous and exhilarat- 
ing ; and one thing which charmed me, if possible, 
more than any other, was the fact that partition-walls 
were gradually giving way between different evangel- 
ical denominations. 

I was glad to be invited by brethren of various 
denominations to speak in their assemblies of the 
love of God and of His wonderful work among the 
heathen tribes of the Pacific. More than once I was 
in the pulpit and on the platform with beloved 
ministers of the Episcopal Church. In Monday 
morning, meetings of pastors for prayers and con- 
sultation, I met Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, 
Congregationalists, and many others, and my tongue 
longed to sing with David : " Behold how good 
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together 
in unity." 

My talks in large and smaller assemblies during 
the eleven months we were in the States num- 
bered two hundred and thirty-nine. 

Assuredly the Lord has commanded the blessing 
to rest on all such unions of heart among His people. 
There need be no harm in the varied organization 
of Christian workers. There may be a beauty and an 
increased efficiency in it, as there is in the organization 



Visit in Washington. 2 1 7 

of armies, or other corps of officers or laborers, if 
only there be harmony of heart, " the unity of spirit 
in the bonds of peace." 

One of our happiest weeks was spent in the city of 
Washington. Every day was full of interest. We 
looked in upon our institutions, legislative, civil, 
literary, benevolent, and religious, and were cheered 
to see so much of good sense, philanthropy, and 
earnest piety modifying and refining life in the me- 
tropolis of the Union. 

We visited the Howard University, in company 
with its President, and attended one of its commence- 
ments in a crowded church in the city. The exer- 
cises did honor to the faculty and the speakers, and 
the large and cultivated assembly, in which were seen 
many if not most of the clergy of the city, with num- 
bers of the Senators and Representatives of the 
nation, manifested a lively interest in all the cer- 
emonies of the occasion. Several of the students 
were graduated with honors. The speeches of the 
colored students were good, and that of one of 
the darkest in his class was not only sensible, but 
brilliant. 

I need not speak of our visits by invitation to 
theological and female seminaries — Andover, Brad- 
ford, Vassar, Union, Auburn, and Princeton, and of 
our great enjoyment on these occasions. 

The meeting of the American Board for 1870 
10 



2t8 Life in Hawaii. 

was held in Brooklyn, and for the first time we had 
the privilege of attending this annual gathering. 

Here we met missionaries and men of distinction 
from the Orient and the Occident, from every conti- 
nent, and from many an island of the globe. Never 
shall I forget that great congregation of glowing 
faces and earnest listeners. I have seen larger and 
more compact assemblies on Hawaii, but they were 
less responsive. This was like a sea of shining silver. 
It was mind and soul looking out of its windows ; 
it was intelligence, culture, piety, beaming like sun- 
light from human faces. 

I have seen Mauna Kea veiled with the mantle of 
night, and casting its gigantic shadow of darkness 
upon us. Again I have seen it when the first rays 
of the rising sun began to gild its summit. Watch- 
ing it for a little while, the light poured down its 
rocky sides, chasing the night before it, until the 
mighty pile stood out clothed in burnished gold, and 
shining like a monarch arrayed in robes of glory. 

And when I gazed upon that platform in Brook- 
lyn, and cast my eyes upon the great assembly which 
filled the house, I said in my heart, " When will 
Polynesia and Micronesia display such a gathering 
of wisdom, piety, and moral power ? A brighter than 
a natural sun begins to illume the darkness of those 
lands, chasing away the night of ages ; but when will 
the full-orbed Sun of Righteousness ascend to the 



The Old Home Revisited. 219 

zenith and pour a flood of light and glory over all 
our benighted islands ? " And then I reflected that 
even these lights of the Christian churches were yet 
to flicker as distant tapers before the coming glories of 
Zion, as predicted in the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah. 

Our visit to Killingworth, my native town, was full 
of interest. Tender memories of childhood and youth 
often drew tears. Sixty-nine years had swept along 
the flood of time since my eyes first saw the light of 
day, and forty-four since I had left the home where I 
was born and nourished. The homestead where my 
father taught his boys to plow and harrow, to plant 
and hoe, to sow and reap, to cradle and bind, to mow 
and rake, and pitch and gather into the barn the 
winter's feed for cattle, was there. The orchard, 
where we children gathered apples and other fruits, 
was there ; but many of the choice trees were gone, 
and the great sugar-maple and the nut-bearing trees 
where we had contested with the squirrel for our 
winter stores had disappeared. The cottage, where 
eight children had been reared, and where, as years 
passed on, we gathered at our annual thanksgivings, 
was desolate and silent, and no living voice came 
up from lawn and meadow and field which once 
echoed with the shout and merry laughter of child- 
hood. The cool waters of the well were unruffled, 
and the sweep and " the old oaken bucket " were no 
more. The "Cranberry Brook" sung and babbled 



220 Life in Hawaii. 

amidst the alders and witch-hazels, but with no re- 
sponse from eager, gleesome anglers and bathers. 
Birds built their nests and sang and reared their 
broods without disturbance. 

The old school-house, with its broad fire-place, 
and its benches of slabs ; the round side-down, with 
rough wooden legs and lacking supports for the chil- 
dren's backs, were replaced by a convenient room, 
with stove, and easy seats, and other improvements. 
The barn-like meeting-house, with its high galleries 
and lofty sounding-board, and the little foot-stoves 
which comforted the mothers, while the fathers sat 
chilled on bleak, wintry Sundays, had disappeared, and 
a new building was in its stead. I went to it ; there 
was a new pastor, and the congregation was mostly 
new. Here and there a white-crowned head in the 
assembly revealed a schoolmate or a friend and com- 
panion of my youthful days. Ah, memories how ten- 
der, how dear, how deathless ! I went to the ceme- 
tery, where friends once near to me had been gathered 
one by one, and where each of the departed ones 
slept alone unconscious of his proximity to the dust 
of his dearest earthly friend. On the marble I read 
the sober epitaph of father, mother, sister, neighbor, 
and friend. Stones in other grave-yards already 
marked the resting-places of all my brothers save 
one, and he has since that time departed. 

Thankful for one more view of my boyhood's 



Fidelia Church Co an. 221 

home, with chastened reflections I turned from it for 
the last time. 

On our return to Hilo we met a cordial welcome 
from all, and the church and people were in a pros- 
perous state. But a heavy shadow darkened over our 
home. The dear one who had been its light and joy 
for thirty-six years was growing feebler day by day, 
and the signs of her departure could not be mistaken. 

Calmly she began to set her house in order, to 
be ready to welcome the coming messenger. She 
assured us of her unshaken faith in Christ, and pre- 
pared farewell suggestions for the dear ones she was 
soon to leave. 

On Sunday, Sept. 29, 1872, the faithful spirit took 
its flight upward. Her sojourn on the earth was 
three-score and two years ; her life above is " where 
eternal ages roll." 

There were tender and solemn funeral services in 
our church on Monday, but the day was stormy, and 
it was not till the following morning that the dust of 
our beloved one was laid to rest in the cemetery on 
Prospect Hill, where hers was the first grave. On the 
marble that marks the spot, these words are inscribed : 

" ' Faithful unto death,' 
Crowned with life." 

The cemetery is in a beautiful place ; the tower- 
ing mountains are upon the west and south. East 



222 Life in Hawaii. 

and north stretches the ocean, and a glorious emerald 
landscape is on every side. The soft breezes that 
rustle the leaves, and the murmurs of the distant 
surf, do not wake the sleeping form that awaits the 
behest of Him who is "the Resurrection and the 
Life." The soul unfettered, unchained, has drawn 
nearer than they to the throne. 

The dear one was an extensive and eclectic reader, 
a clear and logical thinker. Her mind and heart were 
well prepared to take an active part in the literary and 
religious discussions and activities of the age, but she 
freely chose the life of a missionary to the heathen. 
To me she was a peerless helper. Her self-denial 
was marvelous. The same self-abnegation which led 
her to say to me, in answer to the question, " Shall 
I go to Patagonia?" " My dear, you must go !" con- 
trolled her whole life. She never objected to my going 
on my most severe or perilous expeditions along 
the shores or on the mountains of Hawaii; or held 
me back when duty called me to the Marquesas 
Islands. When I expostulated with her against re- 
maining alone in the house, as she sometimes did, 
she would answer, " I am not afraid." 

To her tender love, her faithful care, her wise 
counsels, her efficient help, and her blameless life, I 
owe under God the chief part of my happiness, and 
of my usefulness if I have had any, as a laborer in 
the Master's vineyard. 



XVI. 

Notes on the Stations — Hawaii — Governor Knakini — 
Maui — Crater of Hale-a-ka-la — Molokai — The 
Leper Settlement — Oahu — -Kauai — The State of the 
Church. 

A FEW notes on other parts of the Hawaiian 
Islands may not be irrelevant in this narrative. 

The great awakening of which I have written so 
fully was felt in a greater or less degree over all the 
islands of the group, and the ingatherings into all 
the churches, from the beginning to the present day, 
have been more than 70,000. My visits to the differ- 
ent islands and stations, my fraternal communion 
with the faithful laborers, and the cordial interest I 
have found among many thousands of Hawaiians 
in the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, have 
been " as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that 
descended upon the mountains of Zion " to my soul. 

On the north of Hawaii I have met my earnest 

brother Lyons, full of poetic fire ; have passed several 

times through Hamakua, once a populous district of 

his field, and have seen the gathering thousands in 

(223) 



224 Life in Hawaii. 

their places of worship. I have visited at his cool 
and elevated station in Waimea, surrounded like Je- 
rusalem by mountains, having Mauna Kea on the 
east, Mauna Loa on the south-east, Hualalai on the 
south, and the mountains of Kohala on the north, 
and all these towering heights in full view. In the 
midst of this amphitheater of hills stood his great 
stone church, where 1,000 or 2,000 natives would 
assemble on special occasions to hear the Gospel, to 
worship the Lord, and to unite in happy festivals. 

During one of my visits at Waimea I was pros- 
trated by fever, and for two Sundays was unable to 
occupy the pulpit ; the only time, according to my 
recollection, that I have been prevented by sickness 
from going to the sanctuary of the Lord since I 
came to these islands. 

On one occasion I went with Mr. Lyons over the 
northern hills to Kohala, the most northerly district 
of our Islands, once a part of his parish, where we 
spent a week in religious services, and where we saw 
many penitents asking the way to Zion. And I have 
visited this field again, since the arrival of its present 
faithful and successful occupant, the Rev. Elias Bond, 
and rejoiced in all its fruit-bearing prosperity. 

I have descended into the deep and grand valley 
of Waipio, filled like a bee-hive with human beings, 
garmented in the living green of its vegetation, shining 
with its running streams, with its silvery cascade leap- 



Glimpses of the Island. 225 

ing from a precipice 1,500 feet in height, and thunder- 
ing forever in the deep basin below. 

I have stood on the very summit of Mauna Kea, 
14,000 feet above my Hilo home, and looked down 
upon the three neighboring mountains, over the great 
valley of Waimea, upon the green fields and shining 
bay of Hilo, and right opposite upon the calm waters 
of Kawaihae, and over and beyond the thirty miles' 
channel upon the sleeping mountain of Maui, and the 
quiet heights of Lanai and Kahoolawe. 

On the coast at Kawaihae I have seen and meas- 
ured the last great heiau, or heathen temple, of the 
renowned Kamehameha L, where human sacrifices 
were offered to the gods that can not save or destroy. 
I have also visited other heathen temples in Kona, 
Puna, Hilo, on Molokai and in other places. In the 
forest under the shadow of Mauna Kea, I have seen 
the bullock-pit where the dead body of the dis- 
tinguished Scotch naturalist, Douglass, was found un- 
der painfully suspicious circumstances, that led many 
to believe that he had been murdered for his money. 
A mystery hangs over the event which we are unable 
to explain. 

Leaving Northern Hawaii, let us glance at the 
western coast. Here lies the extended and once 
populous district of Kona, sheltered from the trade 
winds by the great mountains, with a smooth and 
glassy sea lapping its shores, with many a quiet 
10* 



226 Life in Hawaii. 

boat-landing in little bays and coves along its coast ; 
and with the deep and safe harbor Kaawaloa, near 
the center of the coast-line. On the Kaawaloa side of 
this bay is the place where Capt. Cook fell under the 
blows of the enraged Hawaiians. On the south, or 
Kealakeakua side of the bay, we see the little Jieiau 
built for Opukahaia, or Obookaia, and the cocoa-palm 
which his young hands planted, before he was taken 
to the United States. 

A few miles south of this bay we find, perhaps, the 
largest and most renowned idol temple in this group, 
with a house and yard attached called " Hale a Ke- 
awe " — House of Keawe. This house was once filled 
with grim idols, and in this heiau the most obscene 
and bloody rites were observed. It was also called 
Pnuhonua, meaning place of refuge, and resembled, 
in some of its features and uses, the old Hebrew 
cities of refuge. No place on the Islands was con- 
sidered more sacred and awful than this. Life and 
death hung on the wills of the kings and priests who 
worshiped in this temple. When I first visited the 
place, many of the old idols remained, some stand- 
ing within, others on the outside, in front of the 
house, as guardians and to blast the lawless wight 
whose temerity led him to approach the habitation of 
the gods. These idols were blackened and blear, and 
ready to depart like frightened ghosts, and T under- 
stand that they have all disappeared, as was long ago 



Father Thurston — Governor Kuakini. 227 

predicted by Isaiah, " The idols He shall utterly 
abolish." 

At Kailua, with my now sainted companion, I 
visited the venerable father and mother Thurston in 
the days of their strength, and also the good and 
kind-hearted Artemas Bishop, and our hearts burned 
with love and veneration for those devoted servants 
of the Lord Jesus. Mr. Thurston was a man of great 
power, both physical and spiritual. He wielded a 
battle-axe, and yet he was meek and modest to a 
fault. He was often invited and advised to visit the 
United States before his earthly course was finished, 
and we have heard that he replied, " No, I had rather 
die than to return to the fatherland." His good 
wife was a " mother in Israel," full of wisdom and 
grace. 

In Kailua one would see the gigantic chief Kuakini, 
or John Adams. His weight was near four hundred 
pounds. He was governor and lord of all Hawaii, 
with an iron will, fearing neither man nor monarch, 
proud to call out a thousand men to build a cause- 
way, or a dam for enclosing fish, to cut sandal-wood 
in the mountains, or to build a large church edifice. 
A member of the Kailua church, he often visited 
Hilo, and he sat in his arm-chair, under shelter, to 
superintend the building of the vast native church 
in the days of Mr. Goodrich. He loved power and 
flattery, and, like Jehu, " he took no heed to walk in 



228 Life in Hawaii. 

the law of the Lord with all his heart." He some- 
times refused to obey his king, saying that on Hawaii 
his power was supreme. He was somewhat oppres- 
sive of the people. For example ; he would occa- 
sionally make the tour of the whole island, sending 
messengers before to command the natives to build 
him large houses at all places where he would spend 
a night or a day or two, and also to prepare large 
quantities of fish, fowls, pigs, eggs, poi, potatoes, etc., 
against his arrival. When he swept around the 
island his attendants would number two or three 
score of men, women, and children, all to be fed by 
the people where he lodged. In some favorable place 
he would sometimes encamp for a month, consuming 
almost all the eatables within a radius of two or three 
miles. He loved money; and when his pastor ad- 
vised his people not to plant tobacco and awa, he 
would say to those on his own lands : " Listen to 
your teacher ; do what I tell you. I tell you to plant 
tobacco." 

I had testimony that he would sometimes purchase 
a barrel of rum or whisky, put it in a secret place, 
and order appointed agents to sell it out for two 
dollars a bottle secretly. Some of these acts came to 
the knowledge of his pastor, Mr. Thurston, at whose 
kind and faithful efforts to reform him the Governor 
took offense, and retorted with abusive language. 
Finally, he was suspended from the church, and in this 



Brothers in the Field. 229 

state he remained for a long time, when he fell ill 
and died. 

I was in Kailua, and visited him on his death-bed, 
conversing and praying with him, with his consent. 
His mind was dark and gloomy, and he said : " I am 
a great sinner, and I do not think the Lord will care 
for me or save me." There we leave him, thankful 
for all the good he did, and sorrowful that his light 
did not shine brighter. 

At Kealakeakua we visited our good friends, the 
Rev. C. Forbes and his wife, and here we rejoiced in 
the good work of the Lord. As in Kailua, the people 
were numerous, and the Sabbath congregations large. 
All things looked promising at this station, and our 
fellowship with the teachers and the people was of 
the most happy character. Mr. and Mrs. Van Duzee 
were assistants in missionary work. And after all 
had left, the Rev. J. D. Paris, whose first station was 
in Kau, was located there, and labored in that field 
for many years. 

Kau was only seventy miles from Hilo, and he was 
our nearest neighbor. Here I have visited frequently, 
meeting at different times the various mission families 
who succeeded one another as vacancies in the field 
occurred through removal or death. The Rev. Messrs. 
Paris, Hunt, Kinney, Gulick, Shipman, and Pogue, 
with their wives, have all been laborers in this district. 

In the six districts or counties of Hawaii the native 



230 Life in Hawaii. 

population has greatly decreased, and of the numer- 
ous missionaries of the American Board who have 
occupied the several stations, none remain except at 
Kohala, Waimea, and Hilo. We who still hold on 
are soon to pass away, leaving the churches in the 
hands of Hawaiian pastors. 

As I have visited the churches and missionaries on 
the other islands of the group, and felt a deep interest 
in the pastors and the people, I will give a brief 
sketch of most of them. 

Lahaina, the capital of Maui, was once full of 
natives. The large stone church, with galleries, was 
full on every Lord's day, morning and afternoon, and 
the things of the kingdom of God seemed prominent 
in the minds of the people. The beloved Mr. and 
Mrs. Richards were highly esteemed, and their doors 
and hearts were ever open to their missionary breth- 
ren and sisters who landed feeble and faint from the 
sluggish Hawaiian craft on their way down from 
Hawaii to attend the annual meeting in Honolulu or 
on their return voyage. What relief, what comfort, 
what cheer we all found in the hospitality of this 
half-way station ! It was like an oasis in the desert, 
and a fountain of cold water amidst burning sands. 
Here our children gamboled under the waving palms 
and the spreading hau-trees, eating delicious grapes 
and cocoanuts, while the parents conversed on themes 
of paramount interest. 



Lahaina and Lahainaluna. 231 

We have met here not only the patriarch Richards, 
but the active seaman's chaplain, Spaulding, the faith- 
ful Dr. Alonzo Chapin, and the hospitable brother 
and sister Baldwin, he being the last missionary pas- 
tor of that church. There were several distinguished 
native Christians in this place with whom we held 
pleasant intercourse. Well do we remember the 
good and noble Governor Hoopili and his wife. They 
were the soul of kindness and Christian friendship. 
Whenever we approached their neatly-kept dwelling, 
their doors were opened at once with a warm welcome, 
and with outstretched hands and benignant smiles 
they would call out, " Aloha! komo mai " — love to 
you ! come in ! 

But most of those with whom we took sweet coun- 
sel in Lahaina, have long since gone the way of all 
the earth ; the population of the town has decreased, 
and the place has become a cane-field, with a crush- 
ing-mill and boiling-house in the center of the village, 
a large amount of sugar being made there. A native 
pastor has charge of the church. 

Lahainaluna, or Upper Lahaina, is about two 
miles back of Lahaina, and elevated several hundred 
feet above it. This is the seat of our Hawaiian 
College, established, and for many years sustained, 
by the American Board. It was designed as a train- 
ing-school of high grade for preparing young men for 
teachers, preachers, and for the occupation of the 



» 

232 Life in Hawaii. 

more important stations in the nation. This school 
was in operation when we arrived at the Islands, 
under the care and instruction of the Revs. Lorrin 
Andrews, E. W. Clark, and Sheldon Dibble. All these 
brethren and their wives are dead. The institution 
has been transferred to the Hawaiian Government, 
and a large number of teachers has been employed 
there since the first corps removed. 

In early years we usually paid an annual visit to 
this seminary, on our way to or from Honolulu. 
These visits were always refreshing, on account of 
the height, coolness, and grand scenery of the sta- 
tion, the cordial welcome of the teachers, and the 
profound interest we felt in the prosperity of the 
school. 

The views from Lahainaluna are beautiful and sub- 
lime. Inland rise the serrated mountains, and the 
deep valleys of West Maui ; in front are the placid 
roadstead and shining channel separating Maui from 
Lanai ; the latter name signifying veranda or porch, 
and so called because it stands like a portico di- 
rectly in front of Maui. To the right we look across 
a channel some twelve miles wide, separating Maui 
from Molokai. This channel is often disturbed by 
strong trade winds which lash the waters into white 
foam, rendering the passage for boats difficult and 
sometimes dangerous. 

We have been several times at Hana, a station on 



The Hana Station. 233 

the eastern shore of East Maui, and looking directly 
across the wide Hawaiian channel upon Kohala. It is 
a beautiful and romantic little place, but very difficult 
of access. On one side are numerous and deep 
gulches, with rapid streams of water, often dangerous 
to cross. On the other side there are extended fields 
of sun-heated lavas, without water or human habita- 
tions. 

This station was once occupied by the Revs. D. T. 
Conde and Eliphalet Whittlesey. On our way to 
Honolulu our vessel has stopped at this place to take 
the missionaries there to the General Meeting, giving 
us an opportunity to spend a Sunday and to meet 
the natives. 

Once we found these isolated laborers destitute of 
almost all edibles except arrow-root and milk. In 
spite of their regrets, we spent a very happy day 
notwithstanding this lack of provisions. We ate and 
were satisfied, and we rejoiced in the privilege of 
Christian fellowship with these self-denying teachers. 
It is now a long time since these families returned to 
the United States. 

The Rev. Sereno Bishop, only son of the missionary 
Artemas Bishop, labored there for a while with his 
devoted Christian wife, but subsequently assumed the 
charge of the institution at Lahainaluna. Hana is 
now occupied by a native pastor, and is greatly re- 
duced in population. 



234 Life in Hawaii. 

Wailuku on Maui is an important missionary sta- 
tion. This field, like many others, was once teeming 
with thousands of natives. Its romantic valleys, 
its lofty precipices, its sparkling rills, and its perennial 
verdure on the one side, and, on the other, its broad 
plains, its sand dunes, its emerald foot-hills, and the 
towering mountain, Haleakala, with the blue ocean 
on the left, make it a spectacle of beauty, of variety, 
and of grandeur not often surpassed. 

This station was once occupied by the devoted 
Miss Ogden and the Rev. J. S. Green, who conducted 
a large and flourishing boarding-school for Hawaiian 
girls. This was afterward sorrowfully abandoned for 
lack of funds. 

We have visited Wailuku when the beloved brother 
and sister Clark, and the energetic Armstrong and 
his wife, were toiling here with success; and we have 
been the guests of our honored brother and sister 
Alexander, still living and laboring for the Master 
in this important field. The Greens, the Clarks, Miss 
Ogden, and Dr. Armstrong have all gone, and those 
who remain will only " a little longer wait." Two 
native pastors are settled here over small congrega- 
tions, and there is also an English-speaking church 
for the foreign residents. 

This district is now full of agricultural energy. 
Vast fields of sugar-cane wave where weeds grew 
before; crushing -mills groan, boiling- trains steam, 



East Maiti. . 235 



smoke-stacks puff, centrifugals buzz, and ship -loads 
of sugar are produced in and around Wailuku. 
Extended and expensive ditches bring water from the 
mountains of East Maui, converting vast fields of dry 
and hot sand into rich and productive soil ; the tele- 
phone, the telegraph, and the railroad are there, and 
the material improvements multiply. All would be 
matters of rejoicing and congratulation could we but 
report equal progress in moral and spiritual power. 

On the highlands of East Maui stands the Makawao 
Female Seminary, an important institution, conducted 
by Miss Helen Carpenter, a lady of great skill and 
devotion in this necessary work. A few years ago 
I attended the annual examination of this seminary, 
and spent a week as a guest of the principal. I was 
exceedingly interested in the appearance of the pupils, 
and in the remarkable skill and tact of the teacher. 
All the instruction is in the English language, and it 
was delightful to see the acquisitions of the scholars 
in the various studies they had pursued. 

During this visit at Makawao we made up a party 
to ascend to the summit crater of Haleakala — " House 
of the Sun," the distance from this point being about 
thirteen miles, with a bridle-path for horses all the 
way. Notwithstanding many previous visits to Maui, 
I had never before indulged myself with a trip to this 
monster of craters. We had a delightful ride over 
hills and swales, and through fields of strawberries 



236 Life in Hawaii. 

and ohelos. About midway of the distance we rested 
for a short time under shade trees near a lovely rill of 
cool limpid water, a beautiful spot which has since 
been selected by the Alexanders, as an invigorating 
retreat from the heat and dust of Wailuku and Haiku, 
and which they have named Olinda. 

We arrived at the summit about 3 P.M. We were 
now 10,217 feet above sea-level, and yet the sun was 
hot and the mercury high. In eight hours the ther- 
mometer had fallen forty degrees, and the cold was 
intense. Our guide and some of the party had col- 
lected such scanty fuel as could be found, and we 
made ourselves as comfortable as was possible for the 
night, around the fire that was kindled, and under 
shelter of an overhanging rock. In the morning the 
ground was whitened with frost, and water was frozen. 

The view of this vast cauldron needs to be repeated 
and continued for a long time, in order to get a full 
and clear impression of its magnitude. It has been 
estimated that the circumference on the outer rim is 
thirty miles, and the depth 1,800 feet. The floor 
of this amphitheater is studded with sixteen cones, 
four to six hundred feet high, composed of scoria 
and cinders, appearing from the upper rim like small 
sand dunes dropped from a dumping-car. 

The eastern rim of the crater is broken down as 
low as its floor, furnishing a broad passage for the 
molten flood to the sea. This river of fire, some three 



Haleakala Crater. 237 

miles wide, must have been a terrific spectacle, as it 
rushed in raging billows from the mouth of the cra- 
ter and hurried down the mountain-side and into the 
ocean. 

It is supposed that .this crater is the largest and 
deepest on our planet, and more nearly resembles 
some of the yawning craters of the moon. Time was 
when the raging fires on this mountain must have 
surpassed in grandeur and brilliancy any that have 
been anywhere seen by later generations. For ages 
these lurid fires have been extinct, and from time im- 
memorial silence has reigned over the sleeping hill. 
Can geology, can all human science tell us when these, 
fires were kindled ? how long they raged and roared ? 
and when they were extinguished ? Was it before or 
after the Prophet Isaiah uttered, in sublime language, 
a description of the Tophet near Jerusalem? " For 

Tophet is ordained of old He hath made it 

deep and large : the pile thereof is fire and much 
wood ; the breath of the Lord like a stream of brim- 
stone doth kindle it." 

But another scene, if less grand, yet more beautiful, 
awaited us. As the sun descended lower and lower in 
the west, the fleecy clouds came drifting in from the 
sea, and, massing around the bases of East and West 
Maui, covered all the seas, and bays, and channels in 
every direction, leaving only the tops of Hawaii, 
Maui, and Lanai visible. The upper surface of these 



238 Life in Hawaii. 

clouds was fleecy white, and appeared like a vast sea 
of eider-down. We stood above the clouds in bright 
sunshine, but we saw no water and no land in any 
direction, except the summits of the mountains gilded 
in the setting sun. We gazed upon the scene below 
us with intense interest. As the sun went lower and 
lower, his rays began to dance, and play, and sparkle 
upon this vast sea of snowy whiteness, in lambent 
beauty, and as he dipped into the fleecy bed a 
flood of glowing scintillations flashed over the whole 
surface, the prismatic tints twinkling, dancing, gleam- 
ing, and quivering in inimitable beauty. A scene 
unique indeed, and unexcelled by anything of the 
kind I had seen from the heights of Chili or of 
Hawaii. 

Then the night came on, and the clouds rested like 
a pall over land and sea, while in the clear heavens 
above us the bright constellations sparkled as on a 
winter's night in the far-away home-land. 

In 1836 I visited the island of Molokai, which at 
that time was occupied by the earnest and laborious 
missionaries, the Rev. H. R. Hitchcock and his wife. 
Congregations and schools were large, and the people 
seemed to come readily under the influence and lead- 
ing of their teachers. The Revs. Lowell Smith, 
Samuel G. Dwight, A. O. Forbes, and Mr. Bethuel 
Munn have all labored on this island, hut now for 
years past no American missionary has resided there. 



The Leper Settlement. 239 

Molokai is strongly marked with palis, or precipices, 
and at the base of one 3,000 feet high, lie the Kalau- 
papa plains, stretching seaward, and having no other 
communication than by sea with the outside world. 
Thither more than a thousand of our poor suffering 
people have been carried during the last decade and 
a half, to linger through a living death until the fear- 
ful leprosy brings them to the grave. Our sanitary 
laws are relentless, and in the case of this disease 
they doom husbands and wives, parents and children, 
brothers and sisters to lifelong separation. 

The scenes upon our wharves when a company of 
lepers is being embarked for transportation to their 
settlement are often agonizing. 

The present number in the settlement is about 
700, among whom are many of our well-educated 
Christians and some of the native pastors. A phy- 
sician and medicines, a church edifice and chaplain 
are provided by a kindly Government ; friends are 
allowed to communicate with their banished kindred, 
and all that thoughtful kindness can do to ameliorate 
the miseries of those forlorn beings is done. 

Oahu is better known to the reading world than 
any of the other Hawaiian Islands. Thousands of 
strangers have visited Honolulu ; it is the capital of 
the kingdom, and has a population of about 15,000. 
When I first saw it, on the 6th of June, 1835, it was 
anything but an inviting place. The streets were 



240 Life in Hawaii, 

narrow, irregular, and dirty, the houses mostly small 
and thatched with grass, some being built of adobes, 
or sun-dried mud-bricks, and others on posts set in 
the ground. Only a few stone or framed houses 
were then seen, and these were mostly owned by 
foreign residents and native chiefs. Hardly a green 
tree or shrub was seen within the limits of the town. 
On its western flank, a small creek came down the 
valley called Nuuanu, furnishing muddy water for 
the taro ponds, and bathing and washing places for a 
multitude of natives with their pigs, ducks, and dogs. 
At several points removed from the stream, shallow 
wells had been dug six to ten feet deep, where hard 
and brackish water was found, but this water satisfied 
none but Hawaiians. 

Along the shore in sandy and marshy places the 
cocoa-palm flourished with rushes, hibiscus, and pan- 
danus growths ; but over the extended plain, some 
three miles in length and about one mile in breadth, 
there was little but an arid desert of burning coral 
sand and detritus from the rocky hills, the reflection 
from which was scorching. 

But times, and scenes, and scenery are changed. 
Industry, civilization, and science have made this 
scorched desert blossom as the rose. The organiza- 
tion of a good government, the increase of revenues, 
the introduction of capital, with brain power and 
muscular energy, have made Honolulu a place of re 



Honolulu. 241 

markable beauty. Large reservoirs have been con- 
structed high up the valleys, pipes have been laid all 
over the city, and spouting hydrants cool the air and 
refresh the trees, plants, and flowers of a thousand 
yards and gardens. Viewed from the sea as one en- 
ters the harbor, or from one of the hills that guard it 
in the rear, the town is a picture of enchanting loveli- 
ness. It is a tropical paradise, glowing in perennial 
beauty. 

And, to add to the richness of the soil, the value 
of products and the charm of the scenery, artesian 
wells are beginning to throw up their pure jets and 
to pour out their limpid streams to cheer the plains 
around. 

Honolulu also has an improved and excellent har- 
bor, in which are'often seen the waving flags of nearly 
all civilized nations, with five or six home steamers, 
and an inter-island fleet of which so young and so 
small a nation need not be ashamed. Its wharves, 
its esplanade, its custom-house, its palace, its fine 
Government house and other public buildings, offer 
a surprising contrast to what we saw forty years ago. 
It has two large Hawaiian churches, a seamen's 
bethel where many thousands of the sons of the deep 
have heard the sound of the Gospel, first from the 
lips of the Rev. Mr. Diell, and now for some forty 
years from Dr. Damon. There is also the flourishing 

Fort Street church, under the care of the Rev. Wal- 
11 



242 Life in Hawaii. 

ter Frear, where the Gospel is preached faithfully to 
an intelligent audience. Just across the street is the 
Catholic cathedral with its bishop, and not far from 
this an English Reformed Catholic church with its 
bishop and priests. 

The city is provided with schools of various grades, 
and its literary, social, and benevolent associations are 
numerous and active. 

The Hawaiian Board of Home and Foreign Mis- 
sions has its seat in Honolulu, with a yearly income 
of more than S3 ) 000 ? to be. appropriated to the sev- 
eral branches of Christian work under its care. 

It may be doubted whether any city in Christen- 
dom of equal size has a larger proportion of intelli- 
gent Christian workers, who give more of their sub- 
stance in the cause of beneficence, than the foreign 
residents of Honolulu. 

The first native church in this city was organized 
under the pastoral care of the Rev. Hiram Bingham, 
who came to the Islands in 1 820. In 1 836 his congrega- 
tion, which sometimes numbered 4,000, were worship- 
ing in a thatched house that covered an area of 12,348 
square feet ; this afterward gave place to the stone 
church, which stands as one of the landmarks of the 
city. The plan of the building was made by Mr. 
Bingham, and most of the materials for it were col- 
lected under his supervision. The massive walls were 
raised to a considerable height, when he was called 



Churches in the Capital. 243 

to return to the fatherland on account of the failing 
health of his beloved wife. Both husband and wife 
died in the United States, leaving behind them exam- 
ples of rare devotion and blessed memories. 

The Rev. R. Armstrong became the successor of 
Mr. Bingham, until called to be Minister of Education 
for the Hawaiian kingdom, when the Rev. E. W. 
Clark assumed the pastorate until he left for the 
United States. In 1863, the present incumbent, Rev. 
H. H. Parker, was ordained and installed the fourth 
pastor of this church. 

The second Hawaiian church in Honolulu was or- 
ganized many years ago under the pastoral charge of 
the Rev. Lowell Smith, and since his resignation, it 
has been successively under the care of the Rev. A. O. 
Forbes, and of two native pastors. 

Near the large stone church is the flourishing Ka- 
waiahao Female Seminary. Its germ was a small 
family school, under the care of the Rev. L. H. 
Gulick and wife. Miss Lydia Bingham, principal of 
the Ohio Female College near Cincinnati, was called 
to take the charge of this school. Under her patient 
energy and tact, with the help of her assistants, it pros- 
pered greatly, and became a success. When Miss 
Bingham came to Hilo, the seminary was com- 
mitted to the charge of her sister, whose earnest 
labors for seven years in a task that is heavy and ex- 
hausting so reduced her strength, that in June, 1880, 



244 Life in Hawaii. 

she was obliged to resign her post. It is now oc- 
cupied by Miss Helen Norton, a graduate of South 
Hadley. 

At Punahou, about two miles east of Honolulu, 
stands a quiet little institution called Oahu College. 
The location is beautiful, healthy, and convenient. 
The buildings stand just at the opening of an en- 
chanting valley, and near a spring of cool crystal 
water ; there are lofty and verdant hills in the back- 
ground, and the broad waters of the Pacific in front. 
The land was once owned by the Rev. H. Bingham, 
and was given by him to this institution. 

The foundations of the Punahou school were laid 
with the prayers and benedictions of all the fathers 
and mothers of the mission, and of its friends and 
patrons. For years it was devoted exclusively to the 
children of the missionaries ; but as foreign residents 
and their children increased, the accommodations 
were enlarged and the doors opened to others. The 
college has grown and been greatly prospered. It 
has had many graduates, who have done honor to 
their professors, to themselves, and to the cause of 
science and Christianity. It needs and deserves en- 
dowments. We doubt not it would receive generous 
and efficient aid from American benefactors, could 
they come near enough to feel its wants and appre- 
ciate its merits. 

The missionary out-stations on Oahu were but 



Out- Stations on Oahu. 245 

three, viz : Ewa, Waialua, and Kaneohe. I used to 
visit these places when large congregations assembled 
to be instructed by their pastors ; but the population 
has decreased, the churches are diminished, and the 
remnants of these once prosperous flocks, now under 
the care of native pastors, show but little of their 
former life. 

At Waialua there was established, by the Rev. O. 
H. Gulick, a boarding-school for Hawaiian girls. On 
his removal as a missionary to Japan, the institution 
obtained as an efficient principal the daughter of the 
Rev. J. S. Gree'n (Miss Mary Green), under whose care 
the school still flourishes. 

Mr. Parker and I once went as delegates of our 
mission around Oahu, visiting every station, going 
much from house to house, teaching, exhorting, and 
praying in families, in fields, and by the wayside, and 
holding meetings in school-houses, churches, and 
private dwellings, and endeavoring to reach all with 
the life-giving Word. It was a laborious but interest- 
ing tour. In some villages we found many ignorant, 
stupid, and misled people. Some were Romanists, 
some Mormons, and others without any creed, or 
faith, or hope. Like brutes they were living, and 
like brutes dying. 

We met many confident Romanists, some with 
their catechism and rosary, and with full assurance 
that they were on the direct road to Paradise, and 



246 Life in Hawaii. 

that all who differed from them were bound to perdi- 
tion. I asked some of them if they read the Bible, 
and they answered " Yes," showing me their little 
catechism, with more prayers to Mary than to God. 
I asked one who claimed to be a teacher how many 
commandments there were in the Decalogue. He 
answered " Ten " ; but on going through with them 
in order, I found that he omitted the second, and di- 
vided the tenth into two parts to make good the 
number. 

The island of Kauai is separated from Oahu by a 
channel some seventy-five miles wide. It is 8,000 
feet high and nearly circular, being thirty miles long 
and twenty-eight wide. It is a lovely and fertile 
island, and some of its mountain and valley scenery 
is exquisitely beautiful. Although of igneous origin, 
yet the degradation caused by time, by winds and 
water, gives the island the appearance of a more 
ancient formation than that of the other islands of 
the group. Its cones and hills are rounded by at- 
trition, and its pit craters are so nearly filled by 
alluvial deposits that they are far less distinctly 
marked than those of Maui and Hawaii. 

Historic geology tells us that the Islands were 
probably formed in a successive order, commencing 
with Kauai in the north-west and continuing in a 
south-east direction to Hawaii, which is still in the 
hands of the Founder, and unfinished. 



A Glimpse of Kauai. 247 

Kauai was very early occupied as a mission field, 
and the Whitneys, Gulicks, Lafons, Doles, Wilcoxes, 
Johnsons, and Rices have been faithful laborers there; 
but all have left the scenes of time or engaged in 
other pursuits ; and the good Dr. and Mrs. J. W. 
Smith and Mrs. Rice alone remain of the mission 
band. 

As this island was somewhat remote and out of the 
track of my annual voyagings to Honolulu, and in 
former years could be reached only by schooners that 
were liable to make slow passages, I never felt that I 
had the time to visit it until in 1874. An opportunity 
then offering to make the circuit-trip in a steamer, I 
enjoyed the privilege of spending one night with the 
hospitable family of Dr. Smith, and of touching at a 
few points, where I found the beauty and luxuriance 
of the island equal to their fame. 

Much capital has been invested there in sugar plan- 
tations, and the skill and industry of those who have 
enlisted in this enterprise have produced crops worth 
millions of dollars. The island has a considerable 
proportion of arable land, its flora is luxuriant, and 
its vegetation covers the island even to the highest 
hill-tops. 

This rapid glance at the different islands is 
mainly to mention a few facts respecting the 
transformations in this so recently heathen archi- 
pelago. Over all the group the changes, physical 



248 Life in Hawaii. 



and moral, are wonderful. Everywhere schools and 
churches abound ; knowledge and wealth increase ; 
commerce is active ; more than a hundred thousand 
acres of our soil wave with crops ; the noise of arti- 
sans is heard ; our smelting-furnaces glow at mid- 
night ; and day and night the steam-whistle echoes 
among our hills. Our climate, our scenery, our peace 
and security, are privileges that are hardly rivalled in 
any land, and all that we need to secure permanent 
peace and prosperity, with ever advancing progress, 
is thankfulness to the Giver, and a faith devoted to 
all that is pure. 

The amount given by the churches of the United 
States for evangelic work here must have been, from 
the beginning, about one million and a half dollars, 
and the number of laborers sustained, in whole or in 
part, by appropriations of the American Board, has 
been one hundred and seventy. 

At the present time there are only four foreign 
pastors for the twenty native churches of Hawaii ; on 
Maui, Molokai, and Lanai there are nineteen native 
churches with no foreign pastors ; on Oahu there are 
eleven native churches and but one foreign pastor; 
on Kauai six native churches and no foreign pastor, 
making in all, fifty-six Hawaiian churches with only 
five foreign pastors. 

Many of the fathers and mothers of the mission 
have finished their course and gone home ; their dust 



The Close of Mission Work in Hawaii. 249 

sleeps in this land of their adoption, or in the land of 
their birth. Some were recalled, some entered the 
Government service, and some of those who were 
still at their posts, earnest and active, were advised to 
resign. Then the Board, feeling that its work as a 
Board was virtually accomplished here, ceased to con- 
sider this a mission field, and, entering upon a new 
policy, sent out no more reinforcements, and urged 
the installation of native pastors over churches that 
had been gathered and fed with tender care by the 
faithful shepherds of the flock. 

Some of our thoughtful brethren feared that a ret- 
rograde movement would come with such a change ; 
others reasoned that where the Word and the Spirit 
converted the heathen, the same regenerating power 
would provide among those converts, suitable men to 
act as pastors and teachers. But our native converts 
were as children, and up to this day many of them 
need milk rather than strong meat. They are weak, 
fickle, and easily turned from the way. Intelligent 
and patient adherence to a work which calls for 
watchfulness and continuous care, and a deep and 
conscientious feeling of responsibility, can not be 
found or soon developed among a primitive race 
like the Polynesians. China, Japan, and India have 
their old civilization with its literature, their men 
of keen intellect, capable of heading and guiding 

enterprises of importance ; men of reasoning and 
11* 



250 Life in Hawaii. 

thinking minds, who when convinced of the truth 
and importance of the Christian religion, and per- 
suaded to receive it as a rule of life, are soon prepared 
to become leaders and teachers of others. 

It is not so with the Polynesians. Prematurely to 
leave them to teach, guide, and govern themselves 
in the concerns of the soul, may be more disastrous 
and more fatal than to leave babes to take care of 
themselves while the parents withdraw. The Word 
and Spirit of the Lord have, in the missionaries, pro- 
vided agents for the conversion of the savages, and in 
these missionaries God has provided " nursing fathers 
and nursing mothers " for these infant churches. To 
my mind the only practical question in regard to our 
Pacific Islands churches is, when may they be wisely 
and safely left to the care of pastors from among 
themselves, or in other words, when does this child 
come to his majority? 

Nearly all of our native pastors have been slack in 
church discipline, indiscriminate in receiving to church 
communion, and remiss in looking after wandering 
members, so that our church statistics are in so con- 
fused a state as to be past remedy. Out of more 
than 70,000 who have been received to the churches, 
our last report returns only 7,459, or about one in ten 
of those received. Is our case so much like the ten 
lepers healed by Christ, of whom only one " returned 
to give glory to God " ? Or are the shepherds in 



State of the Hawaiian Churches. 251 

fault? Do we come under the searching rebuke of 
the prophet : " My sheep wandered through all the 
mountains, and upon every high hill : yea my flock 
was scattered upon all the face of the earth and none 
did seek after them"? 

But it is right to add that the present low state of 
the Hawaiian churches must not all be laid at the 
door of the pastors. These are times of trial on ac- 
count of material prosperity. There is an opportuni- 
ty to gain money and luxuries, and the world seems 
to be in most men's hearts, so that we are all passing 
through a struggle and a strait. 

We hope for a brighter day. There has been a re- 
newed effort to train up a class of young men for the 
ministry, who will, we trust, be better qualified for 
the office than many of their predecessors have been. 
To accomplish this, and at the earnest request of our 
Evangelical Association, the American Board has se- 
lected and sent to our aid the Rev. C. M. Hyde, D.D., 
a minister and pastor of ripe experience, to become 
president of our North Pacific Missionary Institute 
in Honolulu. 

In this institute he has been laboring, with several 
assistants, with a wise and earnest zeal, for about three 
years, during which time the school has been gaining 
steadily in reputation. 



XVII. 

The Hawaiian Character — Its Amiability — Island 
Hospitality — Patience, Docility — Indolence, Lack of 
Economy, Fickleness. — Want of Independence — Un- 
truthfulness — Decrease of the Population. 

THAT the Hawaiians are amiable and gentle in 
disposition is, I think, admitted by all candid 
observers who are well acquainted with them. They 
are not excessively vindictive, but easily pacified 
when offended. In this trait they excel most of the 
other Polynesian tribes, especially the Marquesans 
and the New Zealanders. 

They are naturally generous and hospitable. Of old, 
they welcomed the weary and hungry traveler to 
their huts, sheltered and fed him to the best of their 
ability, and without charge. And this generous hos- 
pitality was extended to all without respect to nation- 
ality, color, wealth, or rank. Wherever night fell 
upon the traveler, he found shelter and welcome in 
the nearest cabin. I speak of them as they were. 
Our civilization has greatly, if not happily, modified 
their natural habits in this respect. 

They are docile. Few, if any, of the races of men 
(252) 



Some Hawaiian Traits. 253 

would believe with such simple faith, or, if I may so 
call it, credulity. This trait, though it exposes them 
to deceitful wiles, also disposes them to listen to cor- 
rect and useful teachings. Until wicked and infidel 
foreigners came among them, a Hawaiian could 
hardly be found who would deny the existence and 
character of the true God, or the truth of the Bible 
revelation. But they are too ready to receive false 
teachings as well as true, to be beguiled by fallacious 
arguments, and attracted by false leaders. This is 
why so many accept the old or the modern error. 

As a rule they are patient under sufferings, losses, 
and poverty. Sometimes we look upon them as 
stolid and without brain or heart. I have seen 
many lingering and wasting away under a painful 
disease, and die with little or no emotion or regret. 
It would seem as if their indifference to life were a 
reason why they succumb so easily to disease. 

They are superstitious, of course. What savage 
or barbarous race is not ? And we might be 
amazed, were the facts published, at the amount of 
foolish and false signs, relics of heathenish supersti- 
tions, which still exist among enlightened nations. 
Many natives believe in ghosts, incantations, demons, 
and the power to take the life -of one's enemy by 
prayer (pule anaana) ; but I think that these su- 
perstitions are yielding faster than in most other 
countries. 



254 Life in Hawaii. 

They are naturally indolent. This has been fos- 
tered into a national trait by circumstances. A warm 
climate does not require energy in labor. A perpetual 
summer gives no occasion to lay up stores for a fruit- 
less winter. A native's wants are few. These satisfied, 
why labor ? To him it would be like beating the air 
or felling the forest without motive. When a want is 
felt, he will work for it as earnestly as other men. 
Civilization has increased their wants, and their 
houses and horses and clothing, their boats and car- 
riages and money have come of labor. 

But they lack economy. This is true, personally, 
socially, and politically. They lack the gift of order 
and frugality ; and this applies to time, to talent, 
to industry, and to the use of property of every kind. 
As a rule, they know not how to " gather up the 
fragments, that nothing be lost." It is now easy 
for natives to get money ; even the children, if they 
will work, can earn from twenty-five cents to fifty 
cents a day, while the wages of laboring men are from 
one dollar to three dollars a day, according to their 
skill and fidelity; but few of them know how to keep 
or use money wisely. And so it is of houses, furni- 
ture, tools, clothing, horses, lands, etc. Such things 
are lost or ruined by neglect, or slip out of their 
hands to pay unwise debts. They gather and scatter; 
few accumulate for permanent use. We teach them 
industry, economy, frugality, and generosity ; but 



Hazuaiian Changcableness. 255 

their progress in these virtues is slow. They are like 
children, needing wise parents or guardians. 

They are changeable, or, it may be said, fickle. 
They love variety ; they often take new names. In 
cases where divorce is pending, the lawyer sometimes 
sends to the pastor who married the couple for a 
certificate of marriage, that given at the time of 
the ceremony having been lost, and perhaps the long 
search for their names in the marriage records is all 
in vain, when, at last, it is ascertained that they are 
now known by different names. Some build comfort- 
able houses at the cost of all they have, and in a 
little while leave them desolate, and remove to other 
districts or islands. To seek after and to find them 
in their frequent removals is often like searching for 
lost sheep upon the mountains. Some take letters 
of dismission to another church, and return without 
delivering them. Some go without letters, not in- 
tending to stay away, but never return ; and when the 
name is changed, as well as the place of residence, it 
adds a heavy burden to the pastor's care in looking 
after his church members. About five hundred of 
the members of the Hilo church are now absent in 
different places. 

They are amorous. Climate, lack of education, want 
of full employment of mind and body on matters of 
superior importance, and the seductions of vile men 
from foreign lands, endanger the morality, the piety. 



256 Life in Hawaii. 

and the life of this infant race. With the examples 
of the rich, and of men of office and rank, the temp- 
tations of gold acting upon yielding natures, how can 
a pure morality and virtue be preserved among a 
people like the Hawaiians ? Some of our laws are 
so framed by unprincipled men as to offer a pre- 
mium to licentiousness, and even wholesome laws are 
so nearly a dead-letter for want of execution, that 
the villain is oftener protected in sin than punished. 
What can be done when vice is bold and shameless, 
and only virtue blushes ? 

They are followers, not leaders. Few, if any, of 
them are able to head any important secular enter- 
prise. In agriculture, commerce, the mechanic arts, 
education, traffic, and in all things which require 
clear thought, sound judgment, tact, patience, and 
a deep sense of responsibility, they are deficient. 
Hence they are mostly servants or subordinates. 
The Chinaman goes ahead of them in all business 
matters. If a Hawaiian holds office, the office is a 
sinecure, and its duties are usually committed to 
foreign clerks. 

Naturally they are untruthful. They go astray as 
soon as they are born, speaking lies. This is a severe 
charge, but it is a trait probably in all savage races. 
To lie under slight provocation is to a native as 
natural and as easy as to breathe. The fact is patent, 
and it is one of the traits in the Hawaiian character 



Faults of the Native Character. 257 



which costs us the greatest pain, and the most earnest 
and persistent labor, to eradicate. The sin seems like 
an instinct; but by " eternal vigilance" it gradually 
gives way, and is succeeded by better habits. The 
Hawaiian begins to build a house which should be 
done in two weeks, and it may not be completed in six 
or twelve months ; it will then be years before it is 
supplied with doorsteps. The servant tells you the 
flour or the potatoes are all gone, and you find several 
pounds remaining. Or he pronounces the work as- 
signed him as " all done," when it is only two-thirds 
done. One informs you that all the people in a given 
village are drunk. You make farther inquiries and 
find only two out of fifty who have fallen. The 
washerwoman must have the same wages when she 
washes for the family that is reduced to half its 
numbers, as when it was full. • Their character is 
not rounded and fully developed in anything. The 
Hawaiian is an unfinished man. 

Their piety is of course imperfect. Their easy and 
susceptible natures, their impulsive and fickle traits, 
need great care and faithful watching. But we have 
seen many cases that have become steadfast in faith 
and fidelity — broken out of the " Rock " by the ham- 
mer, and formed into symmetry and beauty by the 
chisel of the Almighty. I believe that thousands 
have been converted, and that many thousands are 
in heaven. And if bad men would let the Hawaiians 



258 Life in Hawaii. 

alone for one or two generations, the land would be 
filled with an enlightened and godly nation. 

What is the cause of the decrease in the popula- 
tion ? This is an old question, and its answers have 
been various, sometimes vague, and seldom satisfac- 
tory. This is not surprising, as some of the causes 
are occult and complex. Tradition informs us that 
long before the arrival of the missionaries, a pesti- 
lence like a plague swept off multitudes. Foreigners 
introduced a vile disease, of which many died, and 
the blood of many was poisoned. Inherited diseases 
weakened many others. The too rapid change of 
national habits especially produced barrenness. Un- 
guarded and early habits of children were highly in- 
jurious. There were many Magdalens who came to 
the Saviour after the introduction of the Gospel, and 
were made whole in spirit, and prepared for a higher 
and purer life, while their bodies were deeply marked 
with the scars of sin. But to this day the artful wiles 
of a certain class of foreign visitors and residents have 
not ceased to ensnare and ruin many. 

Ignorance of the laws of physical life was universal 
among the natives, and the missionaries have labored 
hard and continuously from the beginning to en- 
lighten the people on this subject. In my ministry 
among the thousands of Hilo and Puna, I have wit- 
nessed not only scores who have died in early life 
from the effects of bad habits, but also hundreds 



The Decay of the Population. 259 

whose days have been shortened from sheer igno- 
rance of physiogical law. 

It may be surprising to some to be told, that the 
sudden and great changes brought on by civilization 
check the population. The changes in dress, in food, 
in dwellings, and in the occupations of life, often bring 
on consumption, fevers, and other diseases which al- 
most decimate a community. Natives that once 
lived almost as nude as the brutes, and were yet 
hardy, because adapted to their surroundings, often 
succumb to new habits of life. Instead of wearing 
the maro and the loose bark tapa, they often put on 
two pairs of pantaloons over a thick woolen shirt, 
with tight boots, and a thick coat or heavy overall, 
and thus appear in church or in a public gathering, 
panting with heat and wet with perspiration. On 
returning to their homes they doff all but a shirt or 
maro, and sit or lie down and fall asleep in the coolest 
place to be found, rising with a cold and a cough 
which may end in disease and the grave. Even the 
civilized houses of some prove charnel houses, for in- 
stead of ventilating them wisely, they often close 
every door and window of a small and close room, lie 
down, cover their head with a woolen blanket, and 
thus sleep all night, the air growing more and more 
impure. 

In 1848 a fearful epidemic of the measles carried off 
10,000 of our people, a tenth of the whole population. 



260 Life in Hawaii. 

Five years later, the small-pox took 3,000 more. These 
were days of darkness and sorrow. The natives were 
strangers to these diseases ; physicians were few, and 
lived mostly in Honolulu. The natives had no reme- 
dies for these burning plagues, no wise and faithful 
nurses, and no food suited to their condition. Tor- 
mented with heat and thirst, they plunged by scores 
and hundreds into the nearest water, salt or fresh, 
they could find, and the eruption being suppressed, 
they died in a few hours. The scene was awful. The 
Government did what it could in its inexperience, 
and missionaries and all benevolent foreigners lent a 
helping hand to those in distress around them. But 
the masses of the people were beyond their reach ; 
and the angel of death moved on by night and by day, 
amidst the groans and dying agonies of households 
and villages. The fiery darts of the destroyer flew 
thick over all the land, and there was no effective 
shield to protect the multitudes from their poisoned 
barbs. 

And now, for many years, that persistent, unrelent- 
ing plague, the leprosy, has been poisoning the blood 
and lowering the vitality of thousands of our people. 
We have a humane government, a competent board 
of health, and wholesome sanitary regulations, and 
yet the plague is not stayed. Notwithstanding a 
crowded leper settlement on Molokai, there are hun- 
dreds dying inch by inch, scattered all over the Isl- 



The Leprosy. 261 

ands, some of them hiding from the public eye, some 
concealed by friends, and some not yet pronounced 
upon by physicians. The leper question is one of the 
gravest before the nation. 

Thus the decrease of the Hawaiians goes on slowly, 
surely, irresistibly. They are not an exceptional case ; 
many other races originally savage have melted away 
and disappeared before the unrelenting march of 
civilization. 



XVIII. 

Kilauea — Changes in the Crater — Atte?npt to Measure 
the Heat of its Lavas — Phenomena in Times of Great 
Activity — Visitors in the Domains of Pele. 

THE volcano of Kilauea is always in action. Its 
lake of lava and brimstone rolls and surges 
from age to age. 

Sometimes these fires are sluggish, and one might 
feel safe in pitching his tent upon the floor of the 
crater. Again the ponderous masses of hardened 
lava, in appearance like vast coal-beds, are broken up 
by the surging floods below, and tossed hither and 
thither, while the great bellows of Jehovah blows 
upon these hills and cones and ridges of solidified 
rocks, and melts them down into seas and lakes and 
streams of liquid fire. 

As the great volcano is within the limits of my 

parish, and as my missionary trail flanks it on three 

sides, I may have observed it a hundred times; but 

never twice in the same state. 

Its outer wall remains nearly the same from age 
(262) 



Varying Action in Kilauea. 263 

to age, but all within the vast cauldron undergoes 
changes. I have visited it when there was but one 
small pool of fusion visible, and at another time I 
have counted eighty fires in the bottom of the crater. 
Sometimes I have seen what is called Halemaumau, 
or South Lake, enlarged to a circuit of three miles, 
and raging as if filled with infernal demons, and again 
domed over with a solid roof, excepting a single 
aperture of about twenty feet in diameter at the 
apex, which served as a vent to the steam and gases. 
On my next visit I would find this dome broken in, 
and the great sea of fiery billows, of near a mile in 
diameter, rolling below. 

On one occasion, when there with a party of friends, 
we found the door of entrance to the floor of the 
crater closed against us. A flood of burning fusion, 
covering some fifty acres, had burst out at the lower 
end of the path, shutting out all visitors, so that we 
spent the day and night upon the upper rim of the 
abyss. 

On another occasion I found the great South Lake 
filled to the brim, and pouring out in two deep and 
broad canals at nearly opposite points of the lake. 
The lava followed these crescent fissures of fifty or 
more feet deep and wide until they came within 
half a mile of meeting under the northern wall of 
the crater, thus nearly enclosing an area of about 
two miles in length and a mile and a half in breadth. 



264 Life 77i Hawaii. 

A pyrometer, sent out by Professor J. D. Dana, 
was put into my hands to measure the heat of melted 
lava. I had taken it with me twice to the crater 
unsuccessfully, the fusion being too deep in the lake 
to be reached. I had also sent it up by others, with 
instructions, hoping to get it inserted ; but failing, I 
went up again with my friend, Dr. Lafon. We de- 
scended the crater and traveled south about two 
miles, when a vast mound like a truncated cone rose 
before us. Not recognizing this elevation, I said to 
my companion, " This is a new feature in the crater ; 
I have not seen it before. It is about where the lake 
used to be ; but let us pass over it, and we shall prob- 
ably find the lake on the other side." With the in- 
strument in hand, we began to ascend the elevation 
on an angle of about twenty degrees. When half- 
way up, there came over a splash of burning fusion, 
which fell near our feet. Our hair was electrified, 
and we retreated in haste. Going to a little distance, 
we mounted an extinct cone which overlooked the 
eminence we had left, when, lo ! to our amazement, 
it was the great South Lake of fire, no longer, as often, 
one to two hundred feet below us, but risen to a level 
of about twenty-five feet above the surrounding plain, 
and contained by a circular dam of cooled lava some 
three miles in circumference. The scene was awful. 
Over all that high and extended surface the fiery bil- 
lows were surging and dashing with infernal seething 



The Lost Pyrometer. 265 

and mutterings and hissings. The whole surface was 
in ebullition, and now and then large blisters, many feet 
in length, viscous films, of the consistency of glu- 
tinous matter, would rise in gigantic bubbles created 
by the lifting gases, and then burst and disappear. 

We were struck with amazement ; and the question 
was, Shall we again venture near that awful furnace ? 
We could frequently see the lava flood spilling over 
the rim like a boiling cauldron, and what if the en- 
circling dam should burst and pour its deluge of fiery 
ruin over all the surrounding area ! But unwilling to 
fail in our experiment we came down from the cone, 
and carefully, and with eyes agaze, began to ascend 
the wall ; again and again we were driven back by 
the splashes of . red-hot lava. We persevered, and 
watching and dodging the spittings, I was at last 
able to reach so near the top of the dam as to thrust 
the pyrometer through the thin part of the upper 
rim, when out burst a gory stream of lava, and 
we ran down to wait the time for withdrawing the 
instrument. The shaft of the pyrometer was about 
four feet long, with a socket into which I had firmly 
fastened a ten-foot pole. When at last we grasped 
the pole and pulled, the strength of four strong arms 
could not dislodge the pyrometer. We pulled and 
pulled until the pole was wrenched from the socket. 
The instrument was fast beyond recovery, and with 

keen regret we left it in the hardened lava. 
12 



266 Life in Hawaii, 

We turned to retreat from the crater, and before we 
had reached the upper rim, we looked back and saw 
that awful lake emptying itself at two points, one of 
which appeared to be in the very place where we had 
stood only half an hour before. The whole southern 
portion of the crater was a sea of liquid fire, covering, 
as I estimated, about two square miles, with a proba- 
ble depth of three feet. 

This circular dam which enclosed the elevated lava- 
lake was formed gradually by successive overflowings 
upon the rim, depositing stratum upon stratum, until 
the solidified layers had raised the dam some twenty- 
five feet ; when the lateral pressure became so great 
as to burst the barrier and give vent to this terrific 
flood. 

I have heard great avalanches of rocks fall from 
the outer walls of the crater some eight hundred feet 
into the dread abyss below with thundering uproar. 
At the distance of two miles I have heard the sough- 
ing and sighing of the lava waves, and upon the 
surface of that awful lake I have seen as it were 
gory forms leaping up with shrieks, as if struggling 
to escape their doom, and again plunging and disap- 
pearing beneath the burning billows. To stand upon 
the margin of this lake of fire and brimstone, to listen 
to its infernal sounds, the rolling, surging, tossing, 
dashing, and spouting of its furious waves ; to wit- 
ness its restless throbbings, its gyrations, its fierce 



The House of Pele. 267 

ebullitions, its writhing, and its fearful throes as if in 
anguish, and to feel the hot flushes of its sulphurous 
breath, is to give one sensations which no human 
language can express. 

Sometimes an indurated film, two to four inches 
thick, will form over all the central part of the lake, 
while its periphery is a circle of boiling lava, spout- 
ing, leaping, and dancing as if in merry gambols. All 
at once the scene changes, the central portion begins 
to swell and rise into a grayish dome, until it bursts 
like a gigantic bubble, and out rushes a sea of crim- 
son fusion, which pours down to the surrounding 
wall with an awful seething and roaring, striking 
this mural barrier with fury, and with such force 
that its sanguinary jets are thrown back like a re- 
pulsed charge upon a battle-field, or tossed into the 
air fifty to a hundred feet high, to fall upon the up- 
per rim of the pit in a hail-storm of fire. 

This makes the filamentous vitrifaction called 
" Pele's hair." The sudden sundering of the fusion 
into thousands of particles, by the force that thus 
ejects the igneous masses upward, and their separa- 
tion when in this fused state, spins out vitreous threads 
like spun glass. These threads are light, and when 
taken up by brisk winds, are often kept floating and 
gyrating in the atmosphere, until they come into a 
calmer stratum of air ; when they fall over the sur- 
rounding regions, sometimes in masses in quiet and 



268 Life in Hawaii. 

sheltered places. They are sometimes carried a hun- 
dred miles, as is proved by their dropping on ships 
at sea. This " hair " takes the color of the lava of 
which it is formed. Some of it is a dark gray, some 
auburn, or it may be yellow, or red, or of a brick 
color. 

Another mode of action in this lake is to encrust 
nearly all the surface with the hardened covering, 
while active boiling is kept up at the margin on one' 
side only. When this ebullition becomes intense, the 
fusion rises on that side, while the other side is quiet. 
After a little, this agitated lava will rise and fall over 
upon the crust, pressing or breaking it down, and 
rolling in a fiery wave across the lake, and thus cover- 
ing its whole surface with an intense boiling and surg- 
ing, so fierce and so hot that the spectator withdraws 
from the insufferable heat to a cooler and safer 
position. 

To be struck with this heat in its intensity, is to be 
death-struck, and to inhale a full draught of this sul- 
phurous acid gas in its strength would be to extinguish 
life. All visitors must keep on the windward side of 
the lake and avoid all currents of hot steam and gases. 

Some visitors are too daring. Others are too 
timid. I have known several gentlemen who have 
ventured into places of peril, and escaped death as by 
a miracle ; and I have known one at least so timid as 
to turn back to Hilo as soon as he saw smoke and 



Visitors to Kilauea. 269 



steam, and smelt sulphur, though he was still more 
than a mile distant from the volcano. 

And I have seen ladies tremble and almost faint on 
going down into the crater while yet a full mile from 
any visible fire. One who was in my charge was so 
terrified that no assurance of safety and no effort to 
persuade could move her. She sat down upon a rock 
a mile from Halemaumau, and would not move until 
we led her out of the crater. Others, though trans- 
fixed and awe-struck at first, become so fearless that 
they play with the pools and little rills of lava, dipping 
up specimens of it to take away. In order to carry 
it conveniently, one lady put a specimen which had 
hardened, but not yet cooled, into her handkerchief, 
when, instead of remaining, it burnt through and fell 
at her feet. 



XIX. 

Eruptions frotn Mauna Loa — The Eruption 0/1843 
— A Visit to it — Danger on the Mountain — A Per- 
ilous yourney and a Narrozo Escape. 

DURING the night of January 10, 1843, a bril- 
liant light was seen near the summit of Mauna 
Loa. In a short time a fiery stream was rushing 
rapidly down the mountain in a northerly direction 
toward Mauna Kea. 

On the nth, vast columns of steam and smoke 
arose from the crater. After a few days the orifice 
on the top of the mountain ceased to eject its burn- 
ing masses, and the action appeared more vivid upon 
the slope of the mountain, until the lava reached the 
valley below, and struck the foot-hills of Mauna 
Kea. 

The Rev. J. D. Paris and his family were our guests 

at the time, and, our good wives consenting, we 

prepared to go up to the flow, which shone with a 

strong glare in the valley between the mountains, and 

had the appearance of turning toward Hilo. Neither 

of us had ascended Mauna Loa before, and we started 
(270) 



The Stcmmzt Eruption of 1843. 2 7 I 

with great enthusiasm. Taking a guide and men to 
carry our food and sleeping-cloaks, we followed the 
bed of a mountain stream which empties into the 
bay of Hilo. The pathway was rocky and full of 
cascades from ten to 150 feet in height ; but the water 
was low at this time, and by wading, leaping from 
rock to rock, and crossing and recrossing the stream 
from ten to twenty times in a mile, and taking advan- 
tage of parts of its margins which were dry, we made 
good progress, sleeping two nights in the forests on 
its banks, and coming out of the woods into an open, 
rolling country on the third day. This is a region 
where thousands of wild cattle roam. 

A little before night of this day, we came directly 
abreast of a stream of liquid fire half a mile wide, 
and bending its course toward Hilo. Passing along 
the front of this slowly-moving flood, we flanked an- 
other of about the same width, flowing quietly to the 
west toward Waimea ; while far up on the side of 
the mountain we saw another stream moving toward 
Kona. This higher stream was a lateral branch of 
the main trunk, and this trunk was again divided at 
the base of Mauna Kea. As these lower branches 
were pushing slowly along upon level ground, and 
as the feeding flood had ceased to come down upon 
the surface from the terminal vent, but flowed in a 
subterranean duct or ducts, most of the flow was solid- 
ified above, and we could see the flowing lava only in 



272 Life in Hawaii. 

a belt of a few rods wide across the ends of the 
streams, and at several points upon the side of the 
mountain. 

Having satisfied ourselves with the day's labors, we 
set about preparing our camp for the night. Besides 
our guide and burden-bearers, a number of natives 
had begged the privilege of going with us. Select- 
ing an old wooded crater, about two hundred yards 
from the lava stream, and elevated some sixty feet 
above it, we prepared a booth of shrubs and leaves, 
collected fuel, made a rousing fire, ate our supper, 
made arrangements for the morrow, and lay down for 
the night. 

But before our eyes were closed by sleep, a dense 
cloud settled down upon us, covering all the wide up- 
lands between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. We were 
now at an elevation of about 8,000 feet above the 
ocean level, and the air was cold. Soon the vivid 
lightning began to flash from the clouds that covered 
us, instantly followed by crashing peals of rattling 
thunder. We found that we were in a sea of elec- 
tricity, and that the full-charged clouds rested on the 
ground. It was a flash and a crash simultaneously ; 
the blaze and the roar were nearly coincident. The 
very heavens seemed ablaze ; the hills and trees drop- 
ping their veil of darkness as if engaged in a fairy 
dance, while the thunder roared and reverberated 
among the mountains. 



A Tempest on Mauna Loa. 273 

I had never before seen a tempest of equal grandeur. 
But the danger was imminent. The storm continued 
without intermission until near morning, and a great 
rain fell. The sun rose, and the mountains on both 
sides of us were crowned with glory. A heavy fall 
of pure snow covered their summits. Looking down 
from our lofty watch-tower toward Hilo, we saw the 
clouds that had blazed around us during the night 
rolled down and massed along the shore, hiding the 
sea from our sight, the upper surface shining with 
light, and alive with dancing and quivering rays. 
We could also see the flashes of lightning dart among 
the clouds, followed in measured time by the boom- 
ing thunder. The scene was of equal grandeur with 
that of the past night, but without its danger. We 
were in bright sunshine, thousands of feet above the 
clouds, while the coast and bay of Hilo were shroud- 
ed ; and, for the first time in years, a great storm of 
hail fell upon the northern part of the district. 

But to the hills ! to the hills ! was the summons of 

the morning. Onward and upward was our motto. 

We each selected a man who volunteered to go with 

us to the summit. From our point of view we could 

trace the stream in all its windings from its source to 

its fiery terminus before us. The surface was all 

hardened except the fused belt of some 200 feet wide 

at the lower end of the flow, pushing slowly out from 

under its indurated cover. Above this the whole 
12* 



274 Life in Hawaii. 

flow was a shining paJioclwe, or field lava, steaming in 
light puffs from a thousand cracks and holes. 

We set out at sunrise with our two native guides, 
carrying a little food, a small supply of water in a 
gourd, and our camp-cloaks. We flanked the fresh 
lava stream some part of the way ; crossed it oc- 
casionally, and walked directly upon it for many 
miles, making as straight a course as possible. Much 
of the way we were obliged to walk over fields and 
ridges, and down into gorges of aa, or clinker lava, 
as sharp and jagged as slag around an iron furnace. 

The work was so severe that our men fell be- 
hind, and we were forced to halt often and encourage 
them to hasten up. At length, weary of this linger- 
ing pace, we hurried on, leaving them to follow as 
well as they could, but before noon we lost sight of 
them, and saw them no more until our return to 
camp. Taking with them all our supplies, they had 
turned back to enjoy rest and shelter with their com- 
panions who remained behind. 

We passed over hills and through valleys ; saw 
steaming cones and heard their hissings. We came 
to openings through the crust of twenty to fifty feet 
in diameter, out of which issued scalding gases, and 
in looking down these steaming vents, we saw the 
stream of incandescent lava rushing along a vitrified 
duct with awful speed, some fifty feet below us. Still 
pressing up the mountain, we saw through other 



A Pe7'ilous Victory. 275 

openings this rushing stream as it hurried down its 
covered channel to spread itself out on the plains be- 
low. We threw large stones into these openings, and 
saw them strike the lava river, on whose burning 
bosom they passed out of sight instantly, before 
sinking into the flood. Far off to the right we heard 
the crashing and roaring of the lava-roof as it fell into 
the channel below made by the draining of the 
stream. 

Noon passed, and the summit was not reached. 
" Hills peeped o'er hills," and we were weary. We 
-came to the snow. One, two, and three P.M. made 
us anxious. We counted the hours, half hours, 
and minutes, while we plodded some five miles in 
the snow. We had no food, no wrappers for the 
night, and no shelter. Our condition was now not 
only one of suffering, but one of peril. Our strength 
began to fail. But to fail of the object before us 
when just within our grasp ! Could we bear the dis- 
appointment ? . . 

We fixed 3:30 P.M. as the latest moment before we 
must turn our faces down the mountain. To remain 
later where we were was death. At the last moment 
we came to the yawning fissures where the crimson 
flood had first poured out. The rents were terribly 
jagged, showing the fearful rage of the fires as they 
burst forth from their caverns into the midnight 
darkness. 



276 Life in Hawaii. 

We had seen the object of our quest, and now life 
depended on our speedy return. 

Full twenty-five miles of rugged lava, without 
guide or trail, lay before us. We had tasted no food 
nor a drop of water since daylight. 

We knelt a moment, and " looked to the hills 
whence cometh help," and then began the descent. 
We ran, we stumbled and fell ; we rose and ran again 
amidst scoria and rocks, up and down, until at sunset 
we reached the point where we had stood at noon. 
Far off among the foot-hills of Mauna Kea, in the 
north, we could descry the green cone where our 
camp was pitched. 

Night came on apace. The moon was a little past 
her first quarter, and her mild light never appeared 
so precious to us as now. Down, down, we ran, fall- 
ing amidst the scoriaceous masses, scaling ridges and 
plunging into rugged ravines, tearing our shoes and 
garments, and drawing blood from our hands, faces, 
and feet. Once in about a mile we allowed ourselves a 
few seconds only to rest. To sit down fifteen minutes 
would stiffen us with cold, and to fall asleep in our 
exhausted condition would be to wake no more on 
earth. 

As we grew weaker and weaker, our falls were more 
frequent, until we could hardly rise or lift a foot from 
the ground. More than once, when one of us fell, 
he would say to his companion, " I can not rise again, 



Retreating for Life, 277 

but must give up." The other would reply, 
" Brother, you must get up," and extending his weary 
hand, and with encouraging voice he would aid the 
f. lien one to rise. Thus we alternated in falling and 
rising ; while our progress became slower and slower. 
When about half-way down the descent, we saw 
clouds rolling up from the sea, and our anxiety 
was intense lest such a storm as we had felt the 
preceding night should fall upon us. The clouds 
covered the moon and stars, and darkened all the 
volcanic lights of those breathing -holes, which by 
night shone like lamps on a hill-side. Our camp-hill, 
and the flood of lava near it, were covered with the 
cloud, and " darkness which was felt " came over us. 
It now seemed as if all was over. But thanks to 
God the veil was removed, the stars reappeared, 
and we ceased to wander as we had done under 
the shadow of the cloud. We had left the snow and 
the colder heights far behind, and now we felt that 
we were saved. When within half a mile of camp 
our natives heard our call, and two came out with 
torches to meet us. We came in like wounded 
soldiers who had been battling above the clouds, 
limping and bleeding. We threw ourselves prostrate 
upon the ground, and called for water and food, and 
did not rise until near noon of the next day. 

Our providential escape filled us with too much 
gratitude to allow us to chide severely the guides 



278 Life in Hawaii. 

who had deserted us, and whom we found with the 
rest of the party, full-fed and happy. 

This expedition taught us useful lessons. One of 
them was never to attempt another enterprise of this 
kind without completer arrangements for its success. 
We learned practically the truth, that " Two are bet- 
ter than one, for if they fall, the one will lift up his 
fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falleth." 

When about to leave our mountain camp, our 
chief guide, a wild-bird catcher and bullock hunter 
of the highlands, came to me with a sober and 
thoughtful countenance, and after a little hesitation 
said : " Mr. Coan, we have guided you up the mount- 
ain for so much, and now how much will you give us 
to guide you back?" Looking him square in the 
face, I replied, " You need not go down, you can stay 
up here if you like." The fellow was dumfound- 
ed and stood speechless. His companions, who had 
gathered around him hoping to share in the double 
price for services, burst out into a laugh, and called 
him an ass. He submitted, took up his burden, and 
gave me no more trouble. But all the way down his 
comrades kept up the joke until he accepted the title 
and said : " Yes, I am a jackass." 

We reached home after three days of hobbling on 
lame feet, but thankful to Him who guides the wan- 
derer. 



XX. 

Eruptions of Mauna Loa — The Eruption of 1852 — 
The Fire-Fountain — A Visit to it — Alone on the 
Mountain — Sights on Mauna Loa. 

MY account of the eruption of Mauna Loa in 
February, 1852, was originally published in 
The American Journal of Science and Arts (Septem- 
ber, 1852). It is here reproduced with slight correc- 
tions from later observations. I visited the locality 
three times ; first while the lava fountain was' playing 
a thousand feet high, and twice since the crater had 
cooled. 

It was a little before daybreak on the 17th of Feb- 
ruary, 1852, that we saw through our window a 
beacon light resting on the apex of Mauna Loa. At 
first we supposed it to be a planet just setting. In a 
few minutes we were undeceived by the increasing 
brilliancy of the light, and by a grand outburst of a 
fiery column which shot high into the air, sending 
down a wonderful sheen of light, which illuminated 
our fields and flashed through our windows. Imme- 
diately a burning river came rushing down the side of 
the mountain at the apparent rate of fifteen to twenty 

(279) 



280 Life in Hawaii. 

miles an hour. This summit eruption was vivid and 
vigorous for forty hours, and I was preparing to visit 
the scene, when all at once the valves closed, and all 
signs of the eruption disappeared ; accordingly I 
ceased my preparations to ascend the mountain. 

On the 20th, the eruption broke out laterally, about 
4,000 feet below the summit, and at a point facing 
Hilo ; from this aperture a brilliant column of fire 
shot up to a height of 700 feet, by angular measure- 
ment, with a diameter of from 100 to 300 feet. This 
lava fountain was sustained without intermission for 
twenty days and nights, during which time it built 
up a crater one mile in circumference, lacking one 
chain, and 400 feet high. It also sent down a river of 
liquid fire more than forty miles long, which came 
within ten miles of Hilo. 

The roar of this great furnace was heard along the 
shores of Hilo, and the earth quivered with its rage, 
while all the district was so lighted up that we could 
see to read at any hour of the night when the sky was 
not clouded. The smoke and steam rose in a vast 
column like a pillar of cloud by day, and at night it 
was illuminated with glowing brilliants, raising the 
pillar of fire thousands of feet in appearance. When 
it reached a stratum of atmosphere of its own spe- 
cific gravity, it moved off like the tail of a comet, or 
spread out laterally, a vast canopy of illuminated gases. 
The winds from the mountain brought down smoke, 



Through the Wilderness. 281 

cinders, " Pele's hair," and gases, scattering the light 
products over houses and gardens, streets and fields, 
or bearing them far out to sea, dropped them upon 
the decks of vessels approaching our coast. 

The light of the eruption was seen more than one 
hundred miles at sea, and sailors told us that 
when they first saw the light flaming on the moun- 
tain they exclaimed, " Look there, the moon is 
rising in the west ! " Much of the time our atmos- 
phere was murky, and the veiled sun looked as if in 
an eclipse. 

On Monday, the 23d of February, Dr. Wetmore 
and myself, taking with us four natives as assistants, 
set out for the mountain. One of these natives was 
familiar with the woods and wilds, having been a 
bird-catcher, a canoe-digger, and a wild-cattle hunter 
in those high regions. His name was Kekai, " Salt 
Sea." 

We passed our first night in the skirt of the forest, 
having taken with us long knives, an old sword, clubs, 
and hatchets, purposing to cut and beat our way 
through the jungle in as straight a line as possible 
toward the fiery pillar. On Tuesday we rose fresh 
and earnest, and pressed through the ferns and vines, 
and through the tangled thicket, and over, under, and 
around gigantic trees, which lay thick in some places, 
cutting and beating as we went, our progress being 
sometimes half a mile, sometimes one, and again two 



282 Life in Hawaii. 



miles an hour. At night we bivouacked in the ancient 
forest, hearing the distant roar of the volcano and 
seeing the glare of the igneous river, which had 
already passed us, cutting its way through the wood 
a few miles distant on our left. 

On Wednesday Dr. Wetmore decided to return to 
Hilo, apprehensive that the stream might reach the 
sea before we could return from the crater, and that 
our families might need his presence. Taking one of 
the men, he hastened back to the village, while I 
pressed on. 

Sleeping once more in the forest, we emerged on 
Thursday upon the high, open lava fields, but plunged 
into a dense fog darker and more dreary than the 
thicket itself. We were admonished not to journey 
far, as more than one man had been lost in these be- 
wildering fogs, and wandering farther and farther from 
the way had left his bones to bleach in the desert; 
we therefore encamped for the fourth time. A little 
before sunset the fog rolled off, and Mauna Kea and 
Mauna Loa both stood out in grand relief ; the for- 
mer robed in a fleecy mantle almost to its base, and 
the latter belching out floods of fire. All night long 
we could see the glowing fires and listen to the awful 
roar twenty miles away. 

We left our mountain eyrie on the 27th, deter- 
mined, if possible, to reach the seat of action that 
day. The scoriaceous hills and ridges, the plains 



Alone with the Lava Fountain. 283 

and gorges bristled with the sharp and jagged aa, 
and our ascent was rough and difficult. We mounted 
ridges where the pillar of fire shone strongly upon 
us, and we plunged down deep dells and steep ravines 
where our horizon was only a few feet distant, the 
attraction increasing as the square of the distance 
decreased. 

At noon we came upon the confines of a tract of 
naked scoriae so intolerably sharp and jagged that 
our baggage-men could not pass it. Here I ordered 
a halt ; stationed the two carriers, gave an extra pair 
of strong shoes to the guide, gave him my wrapper 
and blanket, put a few crackers and boiled eggs into 
my pocket, took my compass and staff, and said to 
Mr. Salt Sea, " Now go ahead, and let us warm our- 
selves to-night by that fire yonder." But I soon 
found that my guide needed a leader ; he lagged be- 
hind, and I waited for him to come up, but fearing 
we should not reach the point before night I pressed 
forward alone, with an interest that mocked all ob- 
stacles. 

At half-past three P.M. I reached the awful crater, 
and stood alone in the light of its fires. It was a 
moment of unutterable interest. I was 10,000 feet 
above the sea, in a vast solitude untrodden by the 
foot of man or beast, amidst a silence unbroken by 
any living voice. The Eternal God alone spoke. 
His presence was attested as in the " devouring fire 



284 Life in Hawaii. 

on the top of Sinai." I was blinded by the insuffer- 
able brightness, almost petrified by the sublimity of 
the scene. 

The heat was so intense that I could not ap- 
proach the pillar within forty or fifty yards, even on 
the windward side, and in the snowy breezes coming 
down from the mountain near four thousand feet 
above. On the leeward side the steam, the hot cin- 
ders, ashes, and burning pumice forbade approach 
within a mile or more. 

I stood amazed before this roaring furnace. I felt 
the flashing heat and the jar of the earth ; I heard 
the subterranean thunders, and the poetry of the 
sacred Word came into my thoughts : " He look- 
eth on the earth, and it trembleth ; He toucheth 
the hills, and they smoke ; the mountains quake at 
Him, and the hills melt ; He uttered His voice, the 
earth melted ; the hills melted like wax at the pres- 
ence of the Lord." 

Here indeed the hills smoked and the earth melted, 
and I saw its gushings from the awful throat of the 
crater burning with intense white heat. I saw the 
vast column of melted rocks mounting higher and 
still higher, while dazzling volleys and coruscations 
shot out like flaming meteors in every direction, ex- 
ploding all the way up the ascending column of 1,000 
feet with the sharp rattle of infantry fire in battle. 
There were unutterable sounds as the fierce fountain 



An Anxious Moment. 285 

sent up the seething fusion to its utmost height ; it 
came down in parabolic curves, crashing like a storm 
of fiery hail in conflict with the continuous ascending 
volume, a thousand tons of the descending mass 
falling back into the burning throat of the crater, 
where another thousand were struggling for vent. 

For an hour I stood entranced ; then there came to 
me the startling thought that I was alone. Where 
was my companion ? I looked down the mountain, but 
there was no motion and no voice. The vast fields 
and valleys of dreary scoria lay slumbering before 
me ; the sun was about to disappear behind the lofty 
snow-robed mountain in the rear. What if my guide 
had gone back ! Remembering my former experi- 
ence in 1843, only about five miles from this place, I 
could not be otherwise than anxious. Minutes 
seemed as hours while I watched for his coming, 
when lo ! there is motion upon the rough aa about a 
mile below me : a straw hat peers up on a ridge and 
again disappears in a gorge, like a boat in the trough 
of the sea. Then at length " Salt Sea " stood forth 
a life-sized figure in full view. Weary but faithful he 
was toiling upward. If ever my heart leaped for 
joy, it was then. As he came within speaking 
distance, he raised both his hands high above his 
head and shouted : " Kupaianaha ! kupaianaha i keia 
hana mana a ke Akua mana loa ! " — Wonderful, 
wonderful is this mighty work of Almighty God. 



286 Life in Hawaii. 

Could I help embracing the old man and praising 
the Lord ? 

We chose our station for the night within about 
two hundred feet of the crater and watched its 
pyrotechnics, and heard its mutterings, its detona- 
tions, and its crashing thunder until morning. Oc- 
casionally our eyelids became heavy, but before we 
were fairly asleep some new and rousing demon- 
stration would bring us to our feet and excite the 
most intense interest. In addition to the marvelous 
sounds, the kaleidoscopic views of the playing col- 
umn were so rapid and so brilliant that we could 
hardly turn our eyes for a moment from it. The fu- 
sion when issuing from the mouth of the crater was 
white-hot, but as it rose through the air its tints un- 
derwent continuous changes: it became a light red, 
then a deeper shade, then a glossy gray, and in 
patches a shining black, but these tints and shades 
with many others were intermingled, and as every 
particle was in motion the picture was splendid be- 
yond the power of description. Thousands and 
millions of tons of sparkling lava were pouring 
from the rim of the crater, while the cone was ris- 
ing rapidly, and spreading out at the base. From 
the lower side of this cone a large fissure opened, 
through which the molten flood was issuing and rush- 
ing down the mountain, burning its way through the 
forest. No tongue, no pen, no pencil can portray 



A Wild Bull's Challenge. 287 

the beauty, the grandeur, the terrible sublimity of 
the scenes of this memorable night. 

Morning came, we offered our prayers, ate our 
breakfast, and descended the mountain with regrets. 
Rejoining the men whom we had left the preceding 
day, we retraced our steps to Hilo, and reached home 
in health and safety, though not without an experi- 
ence it may be interesting to relate. In the upper 
skirts of the forest in a narrow pass we were con- 
fronted by a magnificent wild bull. Coming suddenly 
upon a small herd in this defile, the cows and smaller 
cattle fled and were soon out of sight ; not so the 
bull ; he wheeled and faced us boldly, covering the 
retreat of the cows and calves, and bidding us defi- 
ance. As he stood with head proudly erect, we 
estimated the tips of his splendid horns to be eight 
feet from the ground. 

We were challenged by this mountain sentinel to 
stand, and stand we did. We were unwilling to 
retreat ; to deploy to the right or left seemed im- 
possible. We held a council, feeling that " discretion 
was the better part of valor." The bull was armed 
with ugly horns ; we were unarmed. He stood and 
we stood. Our guide, an old mountaineer, advised us 
to arm ourselves with stones, and directed that when 
he hurled his missile and shouted, we should do the 
same. We all hurled and yelled at once. The proud 
monarch snorted, shook his head, turned slowly on 



288 Life in Hawaii. 

his heels, retreated a few paces, and then suddenly 
wheeled right - about and again held the passage. 
We hurled another volley and shouted. The Bashan 
bull wheeled slowly round, walked about a rod, and 
a second time turned and faced us, bidding defiance. 
We feared a charge, but as we had pushed our 
Goliath back some feet, we let go a third volley, and 
this decided the conflict. He turned, but he neither 
ran nor trotted ; he maintained his dignity and re- 
treated deliberately, while we waited for his highness 
to disappear, without attempting to disarm him or 
make him a prisoner. It was a compromise which 
we accepted thankfully. We breathed easier and 
moved on with lighter steps. 

This splendid eruption of 1852 was in blast only 
twenty days. 



XXI. 

The Eruption tf/"i855 — A Climb to the Source — Mount- 
ain Hardships — Visits to Lower Parts of the Lava 
Stream — Hilo threatened with Destruction — Liquid- 
ity of the Hawaiian Lavas — Are the Lava-Streams 
fed from their Sources only? 

THE great eruption of 1855— '56 continued fifteen 
months and the disgorgement of lava exceeded 
by millions of tons that of any other eruption we 
have seen. 

It was first observed on the evening of the nth of 
August, 1855, shining like Sirius at a small point 
near the summit of Mauna Loa. This radiant point 
expanded rapidly, and in a short time the glow was 
like that of the rising sun. Soon a deluge of liquid 
fire rushed down the mountain-side in the direction 
of our town. 

Day after day, and night after night, we could 
trace this stream until it entered the deep forest, 
when the scene by day would often be made beauti- 
ful by the vast clouds of white vapor rolling up in 

wreaths from the boiling streams and water-basins be- 
13 (289) 



290 Life in Hawaii. 

low. In the night-time the spectacle was one of un- 
rivaled sublimity. The broad and deep river of lava, 
moving resistlessly on through the festooned forest 
trees, would first scorch the low plants and fallen 
timber of the jungle, until they took fire, when sud- 
denly a roaring flame would burst forth, covering 
perhaps a square mile, and rushing up the hanging 
vines to the tree tops, leaping in lambent flashes 
from tree to tree, would make the light so gorgeous 
that for the time being night was turned into day. 

These brilliant scenes were long continued, and all 
Hilo watched the progress of the stream with increas- 
ing interest. 

On the 2d of October, in company with a friend 
and several natives, I set off to visit this approaching 
torrent of lava. As the jungle through which it was 
burning its pathway was too dense to be penetrated, 
we chose for our track the bed of the Wailuku river, 
the channel in which Mr. Paris and I went up to the 
eruption of 1843. We slept three nights in the great 
forest on the banks of the river, and the fourth night 
in a cave on the outskirts of the forest. Early in the 
morning of October 6th we emerged and came to 
the margin of the lava stream in the open plain. We 
had flanked it at the distance of some two miles on 
our left, and its terminus was about ten miles below 
us on its way to Hilo. Where we first struck it, we es- 
timated the breadth to be about three miles, but twice 



The Eruption 0/" 1 8 5 5 . 291 

that width in places where the country was level, and 
where it could easily expand. The surface was solidi- 
fied, and so nearly cool that we took it for our high- 
way. And highway indeed it was, for it was raised 
in some places twenty, fifty, and a hundred feet above 
the old floor on which it came down. In some places 
the walking was comfortable, and in others all was 
confusion thrice confounded. Ridges, cones, bluffs, 
hills, crevasses, aa, swirls, twistings, precipices, and 
all shapes congealed, were there. No fire yet. 
Little puffs of white steam were coming up from 
unknown depths below. Far down the mountain 
terrible fires were gleaming, cutting down a mighty 
forest and licking up rivers of water. High above 
us raged a glowing furnace, and under our very feet 
a burning flood was rushing with an unknown com- 
mission, perhaps to consume all Hilo, to choke our 
beautiful harbor, to drive out our people, and leave 
this gem of the Pacific a heap of ruin. Thoughts of 
what might be could not be silenced ; like ghosts 
from the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, 
they haunted our path. 

Onward we went ; the ascent grew steeper. We 
were startled ; a yawning fissure was before us — hot, 
sulphurous gases were rushing up — the sullen swash 
of liquid lava was heard. We took the windward side 
of the opening, approached carefully, and with awe 
we saw the swift river of fire some fifty feet below 



292 Life in Hawaii. 

us, rushing at white heat, and with such fearful speed 
that we stood amazed. The great tunnel in which 
this fiery flow swept down -was a vitrified duct appa- 
rently as smooth as glass, and the speed, though it 
could not be measured, I estimated to be forty miles 
an hour. Leaving this opening, we pressed forward, 
and once in about one or two miles we found other 
rents from thirty to two hundred feet in length, down 
which we looked, and saw the lava-torrent hurrying 
toward the sea. 

These openings in the mountain were vents, or 
breathing holes for the discharge of the burning 
gases, and thus perhaps prevented earthquakes and 
terrific explosions. They were longitudinal, reveal- 
ing the fiery channel at the depth of fifty to a hun- 
dred feet below, and exposing a sight to appall the 
stoutest heart. To fall into one of these orifices 
would be instant death. From 10 A.M. we were walk- 
ing in the midst of steam and smoke and heat which 
were almost stifling. Valve after valve opened as we 
ascended, out of which issued fire, smoke, and brim- 
stone, and to avoid suffocation, we were obliged to 
keep on the windward side, watching every change of 
the wind. Sometimes hot whirlwinds would sweep 
along loaded with deadly gases, and threatening the 
unwary traveler. 

In one place we saw the burning river uncovered 
for nearly 500 feet, and dashing down a declivity of 



The Covered Lav a-Ctirrent. 293 

about twenty degrees, leaping precipices in a mad 
rage which was indescribable. Standing at the lower 
end of this opening we could look up, not only along 
the line of fire, but also thirty -feet or more into the 
mouth of the tunnel out of which it issued, and see 
the fiery cataract leaping over a cliff some fifteen 
feet high, with a sullen roar which was terrific, while 
the arched roof of this tunnel, some forty feet above 
the stream, and the walls on each side of the open 
space were hung with glowing stalactites, tinged with 
fiery sulphates and festooned with immense quanti- 
ties of filamentous glass. At the upper end of this 
opening we cast in stones of considerable size, and 
when they struck the surface of the rushing current, 
they were swept from our sight with a speed that 
blurred their form, and with a force that was amazing. 
Amidst clouds of steam and the smell of gases, 
jagged fissures opening all along the track and won- 
ders of force arresting our attention, we still ascend- 
ed, until at 1 P.M., October 6th, we reached the ter- 
minal crater. This was Saturday and the fifth day of 
our journey, and we were a little weary, but we set 
ourselves at once to examine this point where the 
first red light of August nth had been seen, and 
whence the amazing flood of melted minerals had 
been poured out to startle all eastern Hawaii. From 
this summit elevation, for six miles down the side of 
the mountain we found a series of crevasses of a 



294 Life in Hawaii. 

similar character, but no rounded or well-defined 
crater. This upper cleft was wide, some 500 feet 
long, and indescribably jagged. It had vomited out 
floods of lava which now lay in bristling heaps form- 
ing a scoriaceous wall 100 feet high on each side of 
the opening. These walls were so rough, so steep, 
and in such a shattered state, that it was very diffi- 
cult to surmount them, but by care and effort we 
gained the giddy crest of the one on the windward 
side and gazed down into the Plutonic throat of the 
mountain. No fire could be seen. Blue and white 
steam with the smell of sulphur came curling up 
from unknown depths below, while the fearful throat 
that had so lately belched out such floods of fiery 
ruin was nearly choked with its own debris. The 
action had ceased ; the fountain, no longer able to 
throw out its burning stream from this high orifice, 
had subsided, probably a thousand feet, and found 
vent at the lower point where we had seen the flow 
in our ascent. 

We were now more than 12,000 feet above our 
home, and sitting on the lip of this mountain mor- 
tar, we could meditate on its recent thunder, and 
seem to see the belching of its fire and smoke and 
brimstone, while its stony hail lay heaped around us. 
What a battle-field of infinite forces in these realms 
of thunder and lightning, of stormy winds and hail 
and snow, of rending earthquakes and devouring fires ! 



Sunday on the Lava. 295 

The source of this eruption is about midway be- 
tween those of 1843 .and 1852, and these three igne- 
ous rivers ran in parallel lines about five miles apart. 
This eruption was also only a few miles north of 
Mokuaweoweo, the great summit crater, whose deep 
cauldron has so often boiled with intense heat, and 
whose brilliant fires have thrown a sheen of glory 
over the firmament and lighted all eastern Hawaii. 
Mokuaweoweo is probably the great chimney or shaft 
which reaches the abyss of liquid lava below, and 
which furnishes the materials for all the lateral out- 
bursts of Mauna Loa, except for those of Kilauea, 
which are independent eruptions. 

It was evening before our explorations of the 
surrounding scenery closed, and the next day was 
Sunday. Unfortunately our guides had failed to 
supply our gourds with water. We had passed pool 
after pool, and had charged our natives to be sure 
and fill the gourds in time, but they as often answer- 
ed that there was plenty of water further on. In 
this they were mistaken, and we reached our desti- 
nation with only one quart of water for four persons. 
But we agreed to spend the Lord's day and offer our 
sacrifices of prayer and praise on this high altar. 

It was cold and dreary, and our bed was hard and 
rough lava, but raising a low wall of lava blocks, as 
protection against the piercing night winds, we en- 
dured cold and thirst until Monday morning, having 



296 Life in Hawaii. 

no fuel — we were above vegetation — and only one- 
half -pint of water each frorn Saturday until the 
afternoon of Monday. 

In itself we would not have deemed it wrong to go 
down the mountain on the Sabbath, but as our na- 
tives are slow to discriminate and reason on points of 
religion, and as multitudes in all parts of the islands 
would be sure to hear that the teacher who had so 
often dissuaded them from unnecessary labor on the 
Lord's day had himself been traveling on that day, 
it was prudent to give them no occasion to stumble 
on this point. I have never regretted the self-denial. 

October 8th we marched rapidly down to find water. 
On our way we passed the famous cone of one mile 
in circumference formed in 1852, and around the base 
of this cone we found patches of white frost. So 
painful was our thirst that we lay down and lapped 
the frozen vapor. A little before noon we came to a 
spring of pure, cold water, and here we sat and drank 
abundantly. At evening we reached Kilauea, a dis- 
tance of thirty-five miles from our morning position. 
Here we rested, explored, etc., and on Thursday we 
reached Hilo, well rewarded for the journey. It was 
all the way on foot, the whole distance being over 
100 miles. 

On our return we found all Hilo in a state of 
anxious suspense, and eager to hear what we had 
seen and what were the probabilities that the erup- 



Second Visit to the Lava- Stream. 297 

tion would reach the town. The light of the blazing 
forest was evidently drawing nearer and nearer daily, 
but no one had as yet penetrated the dense thicket 
of ferns and bramble and of tangled vines and fallen 
trees. A few native bird-hunters had gone up some 
distance into the forest, and climbed lofty trees to 
prospect, and had reported the locality of the lower 
end of the stream. I resolved to pierce the jungle 
if possible, and on the 22d set off early in the 
morning with an English gentleman who had offered 
to accompany me, and with one of the natives who 
had seen the fire from the tree-top. Upon entering 
the woods we soon took the channel of a water- 
course south of the Wailuku, and wading, leaping 
from rock to rock, and crossing and recrossing a hun- 
dred times to work our way along the margin, we 
advanced at the rate of about two miles an hour. 

Early in the day a cold and dreary rain set in, and 
continued all that day and night. What with wading 
and the falling rain, we were thoroughly soaked. 
But action kept up our warmth, and we pressed on 
that we might reach the fire before dark. Several 
times in the afternoon our faithful guide climbed 
trees in order to descry the fire, and to determine its 
course and distance. The day declined, and we be- 
gan to fear that we should be left to spend a dark 
and cheerless night in the forest without light or fire. 
At length, however, there was a welcome shout from 

13* 



298 Life in Hawaii. 

the last tree climbed : " I see the fire ! it is on our 
right, two miles distant." We turned at right angles 
to our previous course, left the water-channel, and 
began to cut and beat our way through the thicket 
under a fresh inspiration. At a little before sundown 
we reached the lava river, two miles, perhaps, above 
its terminus. When within a few rods of it, and we 
saw its glaring light flashing upon us through the 
jungle, my companion, who had never seen such a 
sight, was startled, and inquired earnestly if we were 
not in danger, and if the forest would not soon all be 
on fire and consume us. 

The place where we stood commanded a scene of 
surpassing interest. We estimated the flow to be two 
miles wide, and our view of it to extend about ten 
miles, giving it some twenty square miles of area. 
Perhaps three-fourths of the surface was solidified, 
but hundreds or thousands of pools, and active fount- 
ains and streams of lava boiled and glittered and 
spouted, presenting a scene of marvelous brilliancy 
and beauty. 

The margin where we stood was hardened, but red- 
hot ; open pools were within a few rods of us, and 
cracks revealed the moving fusion below. In order 
to warm ourselves, and partially to dry our soaked 
garments, we stood as near the fire as we could bear 
it, on a little knoll under a large tree about six feet 
from the margin and as many feet above the stream. 



The Lava- Stream in the Forest. 299 

Here we prepared our supper, hanging a small tea- 
kettle over the red-hot lava on a pole, and toasting our 
ham and bread on a spit. Rain fell during most of the 
night, and we could not lie down ; so, supporting our 
backs against the trunk of a tree, we watched the mar- 
velous scene until morning. The river of devouring fire 
was moving slowly on toward Hilo, partly under cover 
of its own hardened crust, and partly open to our sight. 
Near the center of the flow was an open river, some 
half a mile wide, forming a central channel of lava, 
deeper and more active than the rest, while lateral 
branches gushed out on both sides, and boiling lakes 
and spouting jets abounded. 

Two miles below us, along the whole front of the 
stream, a fiery edge, like the front of a war-column, 
was consuming the jungle, and leaving the giant trees 
standing in the burning flood to be brought down 
and consumed in their turn. All night long we 
watched this process. Trees of seventy feet in height 
and three or four feet in diameter were not felled in 
an hour, but were gradually gnawed off by the contin- 
uous action of the igneous stream. A large number 
of these trees fell, and we were often startled by 
their crashing thunder, and amazed at their heavy 
fall and plunge into the destroying current. Here 
they would lie until they took fire, and then startling 
explosions would sometimes occur, and the livid 



300 Life in Hawaii. 

flames would rush and roar while these Titans of 
the forest were consumed. 

The more rapidly-flowing lava often submerged the 
trunks and branches of trees, and during the consum- 
ing process the surface of the flood would be covered 
with thousands of little points of purple and blue 
flame of the burning gases coming up from below. 

Great changes took place during the night. The 
mountain furnace was in full blast, and millions of 
cubic feet of lava were rushing down in the pyro- 
ducts to replenish this river and to push it onward to 
the sea. The surface of the stream before us was 
constantly heaving and changing under the force of 
these fiery dynamics. Large fields of the solidified 
crust would break up like ice on a great river in 
spring-time, and melt. There were detonations at 
various points, and the uplifting and cracking of the 
crust would call our attention from one point to an- 
other, while we noted that the whole surface of the 
flow seemed to be rising like a river in a freshet. 
The hot and hardened lava near us, where we had 
warmed our feet, dried our clothes, and cooked our 
supper, had been melted, and a superincumbent 
stratum of liquid fire had raised it nearly six feet, so 
that its surface was nearly on a level with our hillock. 
Lateral streams, like skirmishers, were being pushed 
out, new fountains were opening, and vertical jets 
were leaping and dancing before us like ghosts in 



Driven Out by the Fire. 301 

flame. A tree fell within a few yards of us ; and 
finally we heard the crackling of the brambles just 
on our left — a small stream of lava, like a fiery ser- 
pent, was creeping along behind us, while the rising 
stream on our right was about to go over the bank, 
and thus we were threatened to be surrounded by a 
ring of fire. 

It was nearly daylight, and the rain and cold con- 
tinued, but the call to retreat was imperative. We 
withdrew to the rear. In about ten minutes more 
our nest was covered with a fiery flood, our shelter- 
ing tree stood in the midst of it, and the flames were 
running up its clinging vines and leaping among its 
branches. 

I had determined to find, if possible, some place 
where we could cross over the lava-stream and go 
down to Hilo on the other, or north side. Working 
our way along the southern margin, and searching for 
some point where it should be so nearly crusted over 
that by zigzagging we might reach the opposite side, 
we at length ventured, my companion and our guide 
following me closely. We made a serpentine track, 
winding up and down, and often diverging from our 
course to avoid open pools and streams. But the 
hardened surface was swelling and heaving around us 
by the upheaving pressure of the lava below, and 
valves were continually opening, out of which the 
molten flood gushed and flowed on every side. 



302 Life in Hawaii. 

Not a square rod could be found on all this wide 
expanse where the glowing fusion could not be seen 
under our feet through holes and cracks in the 
crust on which we were walking. After venturing 
some thirty rods upon this sea of fire, we saw just 
before us an open channel of seething lava, some 
three hundred feet wide, and whose extreme length 
above and below we could not see or measure. Of 
course there was no alternative but to beat a retreat, 
and we worked our way back to the place whence we 
started. 

To many it may seem strange that any one should 
venture into such a place ; but to a person familiar with 
the movements of these igneous masses, the danger 
is not alarming. Fused rock is heavy and of great 
consistency, and when left quiet for a time under the 
atmosphere its surface stiffens and congeals, so that 
I have often walked on a flow that had been liquid 
only five hours before. We returned to Hilo to 
report. 

Still the eruption made steady progress toward the 
town, felling the forest, filling up ravines and depres- 
sions, and licking up the streams and basins of water 
in its way. It reached the banks of the Wailuku, and 
lateral arms were thrown out into the river. Again I 
visited the scene of action. Several ship-masters and 
other gentlemen wished to join me, and my two 
daughters begged that they also might go. The dis- 



The Advance of the Lava, 303 

tance had been lessened to about fifteen miles, and 
after patient toil over rocky precipices and wearisome 
obstructions, we reached the flow before nightfall. A 
furious line of lava marked the lower end of the 
stream, gushing out at white heat from under the 
crust that covered it for miles above. This igneous 
stream had fallen into a stream of water, and the 
conflict between the elements was fierce. The water 
boiled with raging fury, but the fire prevailed, send- 
ing up spiral columns of steam and filling the chan- 
nel. To those to whom the sight was new, it was 
overwhelming. 

Near the margin of the flow we found a lava oven, 
red-hot, but not fused, and near this, on account of 
the cold, we made our lodging for the night. In the 
morning we retraced our steps to Hilo. 

When the advancing stream was within ten miles 
of the shore, I pushed through the woods again, 
accompanied by one native, to the lower line of the 
flow. Here we found an advanced stream which had 
fallen into a dry wady, and was coming rapidly down 
to a precipice of some seventy feet, over which it 
continued to pour from 2 P.M. until 10 A.M. of the 
next day. My guide and I took seats upon the rocky 
roof of a cavern in the center of the channel, some 
distance below the lava cataract. Here we had a 
grand front view of the scene during the whole night. 
The fusion was divided by rocks into two streams, 



304 Life in Hawaii. 

and these descended in continuous sheets through the 
night — where we were there was no night — filling up 
the deep basin below, and changing the nearly per- 
pendicular precipice into an inclined plane of about 
four degrees angle. This great, cavity being filled, 
the lava began to flow down the channel where we had 
established our observatory. The channel was full of 
boulders and very rough, so that we sat undisturbed 
for some time ; but when the fusion began to enter 
the cavern on whose roof we were perched, and we 
heard subterranean thuds, we were admonished to 
seek other quarters. 

As the weeks went on, I made several other visits 
to this lava stream — eight, I think, in all — marking its 
rate of progress and its varied phenomena, and con- 
cluding, with many others, that its entrance into our 
town and harbor was only a question of time, unless 
the blast of the awful furnace on the mountain 
should cease. 

As the flood of consuming fire came nearer and 
nearer, the anxiety in Hilo became intense. Its ap- 
proach was the great subject of conversation. In the 
streets, in the shops, and in our homes, the one ques- 
tion was, "What of the volcano?" Watchers were 
out keeping vigils during the livelong night. Mer- 
chants began, to pack their goods, and people looked 
out for boats and other conveyances, and for places 
of refuge to escape the impending ruin. Every 



Alarm in Ililo. 305 

house near the lower skirt of the forest was evacuated, 
and all the furniture and animals removed to places 
of safety. Our inland streams were choked, and the 
river which waters our town and supplies ships was 
as black as ink, and emitted an offensive odor. The 
juices of vines, and the ashes of thousands of acres of 
burnt forests containing charred leaves and wood 
came into these streams, and the smell of pyroligne- 
ous acid was strong. By day the smoke went up like 
the smoke of Sodom. By night the flames arose and 
spread out on high like a burning firmament. We 
thought we could calculate very nearly the day when 
Hilo would be on fire, when our beautiful harbor 
would be a pit of boiling fury, to be choked with 
volcanic products and abandoned forever. What 
could we do ? 

The devouring enemy was within seven miles of 
us, his fiery lines extending two miles in width. Al- 
ready had it descended on its devastated track fifty 
or sixty miles, persistently overcoming every obstacle ; 
the little distance remaining was all open, and no hu- 
man power could set up any barriers, or arrest the 
on-coming destroyer. 

All knew what we could not do. Some one said : 
" We can pray "; and I have never seen more rever- 
ent audiences than those that assembled on our day 
of fasting and prayer. No vain mirth, no scoffing, 
no skepticism then. Native and foreigner alike felt it 



o 



06 Life in Hawaii. 



was well to pray to Him who kindled the fire, that 
He would quench it. 

On the 1 2th of February, only a few days after 
this, a party of fifty or sixty foreigners was made up 
to visit the eruption, then about six miles from the 
town. A United States frigate with her commodore 
was in our harbor, and seven or eight whale-ships. 
Visitors were also here from Honolulu, and eight 
wives of ship-masters were boarders in the town. It 
was a great muster ; the cavalcade of ladies and gen- 
tlemen included the commodore and his suite, law- 
yers, judges, sheriff, merchants, ship-masters, etc. 

A way had been opened for horses through the 
thicket by natives hired for the occasion, so that we 
might ride nearly to the margin of the flow. 

The morning on which we started was radiant with 
beauty; and as we advanced, natives, catching the 
inspiration, turned out in troops, and it was supposed 
a hundred joined us. 

We met in an opening in the forest, some distance 
from the main stream, but opposite an active flow 
of lava that had shot ahead down the channel of a 
rivulet. A number of the company desired to see the 
main flow in its breadth, and with these I proposed to 
advance two or three miles, while those who remained 
were to follow a trail which the natives would open, 
and prepare a camp near the margin of the stream. 
We returned about sunset and found the camp de- 



A Pleasure Party Demoralized. 307 

moralized. The party had pursued the trail as direct- 
ed, but at sight of the glowing fires which were rush- 
ing down in volume had taken fright, turned back 
on their track and fled deeper into the forest. 

The commodore retreated at discretion, ordered 
his horse hastily, vaulted into the saddle, and taking 
one or two of his officers sped down the hill, out of 
the woods, over the rocks and through streams and 
mud, never halting until he had reached the shore. 

The frightened ladies and children wandered here 
and there, bewildered in the forest, and it was mid- 
night before the stragglers were all brought into 
camp. Most of them were then so terrified that they 
could not be persuaded to approach nearer to the 
burning river ; but those who were reassured and 
ventured to join the party of observation were well 
repaid. Through the energy of a ship-master, a 
fine topsail canvas tent had been set up on a high 
bank of the water-channel overlooking a deep basin, 
into which a cascade was falling from a height of thirty- 
nine feet, and our position commanded the channel 
for half a mile. The fiery stream, perhaps seventy- 
five feet wide, filled the whole channel and drove the 
boiling water before it, burning the bushes and vines 
and ferns along the banks as it approached the 
fall. Down plunged the molten lava, moving like a 
serpent into the depths of the basin, covering the 
whole surface with enormous bubbles. A dense steam 



308 Life in Hawaii. 

which rolled upward in convolving clouds of fleecy 
whiteness floated away upon the wind. Sometimes 
the glare of the fire would so fall upon the cloud of 
vapor as to produce the appearance of flame mingled 
with blood, and again the quivering and dancing of 
countless prismatic colors. By break of day there was 
not a drop of water left in this basin ; the space was 
filled with smouldering lavas, and the precipice, which 
had reared itself at an angle of 8o°, was converted into 
a gently sloping plane. A large slab of lava crust was 
tilted, and stood as a monument of the accomplished 
work ; the flow ceased, a little red-hot lava was seen 
amidst the smouldering heaps of rocky coal, and from 
that day the fearful flood did not come another foot 
toward Hilo. 

This was six months after the commencement of 
the eruption on the mountain. Above this pool, 
where the action ceased so suddenly, was the broad 
river of one to two miles wide which supplied the 
flow ; and this also ceased to move toward Hilo, at 
the same time leaving a breastwork of indurated lava 
some twenty-five feet high across the whole terminus 
of the stream. 

But what is most marvelous, confounding our 
geology, is the fact that for nine .months longer, 
or until November, 1856, after the arrest of the 
flow toward our town, the great terminal furnace 
on Mauna Loa was in full blast, sending down 



The Course of the Lava- Flow. 309 

billions of cubic feet of molten rock in covered 
channels, and depositing it near the lower end of 
the stream, but without pushing beyond its breast- 
works. This lava gushed out laterally along the mar- 
gins of the stream, or burst up vertically, rending 
the crust, throwing it about in wild confusion, or 
heaping it into cones and ridges a hundred feet 
high, as monuments of its fury. I have mounted 
some of these cones, finding them cracked from base 
to top in fissures six to eight feet apart, but so firm 
that I could walk to their summits and look down in 
the seams on the right and left, and see the red-hot 
lava glow like burning coals in a coal-pit, sending out 
deadly blasts of acid gases. 

At many points for miles above the terminus, 
pools, lakes, and streams of liquid fire were scattered 
over the square miles of aa and immense fields of pa- 
hoehoe, boiling, seething, and flowing during the nine 
months that followed February 13th. During all this 
time the water of the Wailuku was so discolored, 
and so offensive in taste and smell, that ships refused 
it, and it was disused by the residents — and in some 
of the lovely woodland rills the water became black 
like ink. 

During this eruption Prof. J. D. Dana wrote to me 
requesting that I would ascertain on how great an 
angle of descent lavas would flow without breaking, 
as some scientists affirmed that a continuous stream 



3 ro 'Life in Hawaii. 

could not flow down an angle of more than five de- 
grees. I took pains to measure accurately on one of 
my excursions, and found lava flowing continuously 
on declivities of from one to ninety degrees. I also 
noted that our Hawaiian volcanoes send out streams 
of such perfect fusion that they will run like oil down 
any angle, and even cleave like paste to an inward 
curve of the rock and form a thin veneering upon it. 

Another question arose : Can a lava stream flow 
for many miles longitudinally upon the surface, with- 
out being fed by vents or fissures from below? Of 
course no one will dispute the fact that fusion pour- 
ing down a steep mountain-side will rush for miles 
with such rapidity that it can not cool in its descent 
so as to stop its progress. But can it push for- 
ward over broad fields of almost level surface ? I 
have answered this question thus: 1st, On ascending 
the mountain to view an eruption I see no evidence 
of deep fractures until we are more than two-thirds 
the way to the summit. 

2d. Where there is an opening extending down to the 
fiery abyss below, there will, I think, always be a col- 
umn of mineral smoke ascending to mark the spot, so 
long as action continues. This is true of Kilauea, and 
it is also true of all the eruptions I have observed. We 
see continuous volumes of smoke ascending from the 
terminal crater on Mauna Loa, and others near the 
terminus of the stream where the fusion is gushing 



The Supply of Lava Streams. 311 



out from under its hardened surface. The smoke at 
the fountain is mineral, while that below is from 
vegetable matter. These two kinds of smoke are 
distinguishable by the smell ; and the mineral smoke 
is nowhere continuously emitted along the line of the 
lava-stream, however extended that may be ; it is 
characteristic of the lava-source. 

3d. I have often surveyed, for distances of five to 
twenty miles, the ground upon which eruptions were 
approaching, and have seen the burning floods come 
on, covering to-day the ground on which I traveled 
yesterday, and consuming the hut where I slept. 
Their manner of progress is so familiar £0 me that it 
is difficult to see how I can be mistaken -in thinking 
that our longest lava-streams maintain themselves 
wholly from the source, and are not fed from fissures 
beneath their course. 

This eruption of 1855-6 gave us an example of 
the law of compensation. Repeated efforts had been 
made to open a road for horses through the great 
central forest of Hawaii. It is probably a moderate 
estimate to say that ten thousand days of native labor 
had been expended on the enterprise. But the road 
was abandoned long ago, after having been carried 
about ten miles from the shore, and in a few years it 
was covered with jungle. This eruption consumed the 
forest to within a mile of the lower skirt of it, and a 
bridle-path has been made to the flow, and upon this 



312 Life in Hawaii. 



hardened stream animals have been taken through an 
opened passage to Waimea and Kohala. With proper 
effort a convenient road might be made upon this 
lava-field, so as to shorten greatly the distance to the 
western side of the island. 

As before mentioned, surface lava exposed to the 
atmosphere crusts over before running very far, unless 
it is moving with great velocity, as down steep de- 
scents. This process of refrigeration so protects the 
liquid below that it flows onward at white-heat, it 
may be, until obstructed, when it gushes out on the 
margins, or bursts up vertically. On plains where the 
movement is slow the obstructions are more numer- 
ous and the force required to overcome them is less ; 
this accounts for the lateral spreadings, the upliftings 
and the thousand irregularities which diversify the 
ever-changing surface of the lava-flow. 



XXII. 

Tke Eruptio?i of 1868 from Kilatiea — The March 

and April Earthquakes — Land-Slips — Destruction 

of Life and Property — The Lava- Stream Bursts 

from Underground — The Volcanic Waves of August, 

- 1868, and of May, 1877. 

FROM time immemorial earthquakes have been 
common on Hawaii. We have felt the jar of 
thousands. Most of these shocks have been harmless. 
A few have broken a little crockery, cracked plastering, 
and thrown down stone walls. 

But on the 27th of March, 1868, a series of 
remarkable earthquakes commenced. Kilauea was 
unusually full and in vehement action. Day after 
day from March 27th and onward, shocks were frequent, 
and growing more and more earnest. At 4 P.M., 
April 2d, a terrific shock rent the ground, sending 
consternation through all Hilo, Puna, and Kau. la 
some places fissures of great length, breadth, and 
depth were opened. Rocks of twenty to fifty tons 
were sent thundering down from the walls of Kilauea, 

and massive boulders were torn from hill-sides and 
14 (313) 



314 Life in Hawaii. 

sent crashing down upon the plains and valleys be- 
low. Stone houses were rent and ruined, and stone 
walls sent flying in every direction. Horses and 
men were thrown to the ground ; houses tilted from 
their foundations; furniture, hardware, crockery, 
books and bottles, and all things movable in houses 
were dashed hither and thither, as of no account. It 
seemed as if the ribs and the pillars of the earth were 
being shattered. 

I was sitting, as at the present moment, at my 
study-table, when a fearful jerk startled me, and be- 
fore I could arise, a jar still more terrible caused me 
to rush for the stairs, and while going down, such a 
crash shook the house that I supposed the roof had 
fallen. 

Going out of doors, I found my wife standing at a 
distance from the house, watching with an intense 
gaze its swaying and trembling, while the ground rose 
and sank like waves, and there was no place stable 
where hand or foot could rest. 

When the shocks intermitted a little, I went up- 
stairs to witness a scene of wild confusion. A large 
bookcase, seven feet high by four wide, with glass 
doors, and filled with books, lay prostrate on the floor 
near where I had been sitting, with the glass broken 
into a thousand pieces. 

My study-table, eight feet long, and loaded with 
large volumes, was thrown out from the wall into the 



The Hill- Tops Shaken Off. 315 

center of the room, with one leg broken square off, 
and the .books and papers scattered on the floor. 
Another bookcase, fastened to the wall, was rent from 
its fastenings and thrown out near the table, and 
three of the sleepers which supported the floor were 
broken by the fall of the case. 

The shaking continued all night, and most or all of 
the Hilo people spent the night out of doors, fearing 
to remain in their houses. Some said they counted a 
thousand shocks before morning, and so rapid were 
these shocks, that the earth seemed to be in a con- 
tinuous quiver, like a ship in a battle. 

But the heaviest blows fell on Kau, the district lying 
south of us on the other side of Kilauea. There the 
earth was rent in a thousand places, and along the 
foot-hills of Mauna Loa a number of land-slips were 
shaken off from steep places, and thrown down with 
soil, boulders, and trees. In one place a slide of half 
a mile in width was started on a steep inclined plane, 
till, coming to a precipice of some 700 feet, on an 
angle of about seventy degrees, the vast avalanche, 
mixing with the waters of a running stream and 
several springs, was pitched down this precipice, re- 
ceiving such fearful momentum as to carry it three 
miles in as many minutes. Ten houses, with thirty- 
one souls and five hundred head of cattle were buried 
instantly, and not one of them has been recovered. 

I measured this avalanche and found it just three 



o 



1 6 Life in Hawaii. 



miles long, one-half a mile wide at the head, and of a 
supposed average depth of twenty feet. 

At the same time the sea rose twenty feet along 
the southern shore of the island, and in Kau 108 
houses were destroyed and forty-six people drowned, 
making a loss of 1 1 8 houses and seventy-seven lives 
in that district, during this one hour. Many houses 
were also destroyed in Puna, but no lives were lost. 
During this awful hour the coast of Puna and Kau, 
for the distance of seventy-five miles, subsided seven 
feet on the average, submerging a line of small 
villages all along the shore. One of my rough stone 
meeting-houses in Puna, where we once had a congre- 
gation of 500 to 1,000, was swept away with the in- 
flux of the sea, and its walls are now under water. 
Fortunately there was but one stone building in Hilo, 
our prison ; that fell immediately. Had our coast been 
studded with cities built of stone and brick, the de- 
struction of life and property would have been terrific. 

This terrible earthquake was evidently caused by 
the subterraneous flow of the lavas from Kilauea, for 
the bottom of the crater sank rapidly hundreds of 
feet, as ice goes down when the water beneath it is 
drawn off. The course and the terminus of this flow 
were indicated by fissures, steam, and spouting of 
lava-jets along the whole line from Kilauea to Ka- 
huku in Western Kau, a distance of forty miles, and 
I have found foldings and faults in several places. 



The Outbur sting of the Lava. 317 

During these days of subterranean passage, the 
earth was in a remarkable state of unrest ; shocks 
were frequent, and it was asserted by trustworthy 
witnesses that, in several places, the ragings of the 
subterranean river were heard by listeners who put 
their ears to the ground. 

On the 7th of April the lava burst out from the 
ground in Kahuku, nine miles from the sea, and flowed 
rapidly down to the shore. The place of outbreak 
was in a wood on one of the foot-hills of Mauna Loa. 
Travellers bound to Hilo came up to this flow on the 
west side, and were not able to cross it, but were 
obliged to return to Kona and come via Waimea, a 
circuit of one hundred and seventy miles. A fissure 
of a mile long was opened for the disgorgement of 
this igneous river, and from the whole length of this 
orifice the lava rushed up with intense vehemence, 
spouting jets one hundred to two hundred feet high, 
burning the forest and spreading out a mile wide. 
The rending, the raging, the swirling of this stream 
were terrific, awakening awe in all the beholders. 

Flowing seaward, it came to a high precipice which 
ran some seven miles toward the shore, varying in 
height from two hundred to seven hundred feet, and 
separating a high fertile plain, of a deep and rich soil 
on the left or eastern side, from a wide field of pahoe- 
hoe hundreds of feet below on the right or western side. 

Before the flow reached this precipice it sent out 



3 1 8 Life in Hawaii, 

three lateral streams upon the grassy plain above, 
which ran a few miles, and ceased without reaching 
the sea. But the larger portion of the igneous river, 
or its main trunk, moved in a nearly straight line 
toward the shore, pouring over the upper end' of the 
precipice upon the plain below, and dividing into 
two streams which ran parallel to each other, some 
hundred feet apart, until they plunged into the sea. 
These streams flowed four days, causing the waves to 
boil with great violence, and raising two large tufa 
cones in the water at their termini. They formed a 
long, narrow island, on which they enclosed thirty 
head of cattle, which were thus surrounded before 
they were aware of their danger, and it was ten days 
before the lava was hard enough to allow them to be 
taken out of their prison. During this time they had 
no water, and were almost maddened by the smoke 
and heat. Several cattle were also surrounded on 
the upper grassy plain, where they were lying down 
to ruminate or to sleep. 

The owner of the ranch, with his wife and a large 
family of children, was living in a pleasant house sur- 
rounded by a wall, with a fine garden of trees and 
plants, near the center of this beautiful grassy plain, 
and while sleeping at night, unconscious of danger, 
one of these lateral streams came creeping softly and 
silently like a serpent toward them, until within 
twenty yards of the house, when a sudden spout of 



Shut In by the Lava. 319 

lava aroused them and all fled with frightened precip- 
itation, taking neither " purse or scrip," but leaving 
all to the devouring fire. The lady was so overwhelm- 
ed with terror that had it not been for her husband 
on one side and another gentleman on the other, she 
must have fallen and perished in the lava. 

The family, crossing a small ravine, rested a few 
moments on a hill near by. In ten minutes after 
crossing the ravine it was filled with liquid fire. Their 
escape was marvelous. In a few minutes the house 
was wrapped in flames, the garden was consumed, and 
all the premises were covered with a burning sea. 

A little farther down this green lawn was the hut 
of a native Hawaiian. As the fiery flood came 
within fifty feet of it, it suddenly parted, one arm 
sweeping around one side of the house and the other 
around the opposite side, and uniting again left the 
building on a small plat of ground, of some three-quar- 
ters of an acre, surrounded by a wall of fusion. In 
this house five souls were imprisoned ten days with 
no power to escape. All their food and water were 
exhausted. Small fingers of lava often came under 
the house ; it was a little grass hut, and they were 
obliged to beat out the fire with clubs and stamp it 
with their feet. 

Piles of burning scoria were heaped around this 
house, as high as the eaves, and in some places within 
ten feet of it. I afterward visited this house, and 



320 Life in Hawaii. 

found its inmates alive and rejoicing in their deliver- 
ance. 

A little further on, and this lava stream came near 
the ruins of a stone church, which had been shaken 
down by the earthquake of April 2d. The walls were 
a heap of ruins, and the roof and timbers were piled 
upon the stones. Again the flood opened to the right 
and left, swept close to the dcbi'is of the church, and 
united again below, leaving all unconsumed. 

The same earthquake demolished a large stone 
church in Waiohinu, the central and most important 
mission-station in Kau, and so rent the house of the 
pastor, the Rev. John F. Pogue, that he, with his 
family, fled to the hills, and soon after left the district 
to return no more. Other homes also were left deso- 
late, the terrified inmates seeking abodes elsewhere. 

On the 14th of August, 1868, a remarkable rise and 
fall of the sea commenced in our harbor, and con- 
tinued for three days. The oscillation, or the influx 
and efflux of the waves occupied only ten minutes, 
and the rise and fall of the water was only three to 
four feet. What rendered this motion of the water 
remarkable was its long continuance, and the short 
intervals of the rise and fall with no apparent cause. 

Another volcanic wave fell upon Hilo on the morn- 
ing of the 10th of May, 1877. From a letter written 
by my wife- I copy the following extracts descriptive 



* Mrs. L. B. Coan. 



Another Volcanic Wave. 321 

of the event: "A chilly, cheerless night shuts down 
upon a day that has had no parallel in kind in 
my previous experiences. I was just rousing from 
quiet slumbers this morning, not long after five, when 
heavy knocking at our door hastened me to it. There 
stood Kanuku, almost wild with excitement, and so 
breathless she could hardly give form to the words 
she poured forth ; but I gathered their substance. A 
volcanic wave had swept in upon the shore ; houses 
were going down, and people were hurrying manka 
(inland) with what of earthly goods they could carry. 

" We hastened to the beach. People on foot and 
on horseback were hurrying in all directions ; men 
with chests and trunks on their backs, women with 
bundles of bedding and clothing under which they 
staggered, grandmothers with three or four year 
old children on their shoulders, and mothers with 
little babes, all in quest of safety and a place to 
lodge their burdens. Arrived at the foot of our 
street what a sight we beheld ! Houses were lifted 
off their under-pinning and removed a fathom or 
more — some had tumbled in sad confusion and lay 
prone in the little ponds that remained of the sea in 
various depressed places. Riders at breakneck speed 
from Waiakea brought word of still more complete 
ruin there ; the bridge, they said, was gone. 

" We walked on toward the Wailama. Then a 
shout, and we looked back to see the waves rising 

14* 



322 Life in Hawaii. 

and surging landward, so we dared not linger, but 
turned on our track, for a better chance of escape 
should the sea again overpass its bounds. 

" People wading in water where their homes had 
stood half an hour before, gathering up goods soaked 
by the brine, and begrimed with mud, men in wet 
garments who had had to swim for their lives, and 
women with terror in their faces caught up the re- 
frain of a death-wail that reached our ears from the 
region of Kanae's place, and the word flew from lip 
to lip that old Kaipo was missing. Asleep, with 
Kanae's babe pillowed near her when the wave came 
upon them, she had wakened, and hastening out of 
the house found herself in deep water. Holding the 
little one above her head, she had courage and 
strength to keep it safe till the mother swam for it, 
and then, no one knows how, the old woman was 
swept out to sea, and hours after, the body was 
found at Honori. 

" About nine o'clock, the rain which had come in in- 
frequent light flurries before, began to pour in earnest, 
and has fallen in such pitiless inclemency through the 
day, that it has added to the discomforts of the poor, 
homeless wanderers, and to the general gloom that 
hangs over our little town. 

" Mr. Coan has been out much of the time here and 
there with words of sympathy and comfort. Rebec- 
ca Nakuina told me the natives said they were safe 



Havoc in Hilo Bay. 323 

wherever he was. One poor old man came to our 
door and asked in most pathetic tones if it was true 
that Mr. Coan had said that at noon there would be 
another and heavier wave, and went away comforted 
when assured that he had not. 

"A large barque at anchor in our harbor was 
tossed about most marvelously at the very mercy 
of every efflux and reflux wave. For hours she 
writhed under this restless tossing, one moment 
pointing her prow toward Puna, and the next in the 
opposite direction, running back and forth the full 
length of her cable, like a weaver's shuttle, some- 
times careening so far that we feared the next mo- 
ment to see her on her beam ends, and then strug- 
gling to right herself, and for a little recovering her 
usual position, only to repeat these movements. 

" May 1 ith. The birds sang and the sun shone this 
morning, as if there were no sorrow here. But it was 
a great blessing that the day was fair ; the sunshine 
was needed for heart-warmth and for drying what of 
clothing and household effects had been collected 
from the mud and slime in which they were found. 

" We went over the same ground on the nearest 
beach that we visited yesterday, only to realize more 
fully the wild havoc that had been made. 

" What shall I say of what we saw on the other side 
of the bay ! If I tell you that Mr. Coan was bewil- 
dered, seeing no familiar object by which to get his 



324 Life in Hawaii. 

bearings, so that he exclaimed : ' Where are we ! ' you 
will understand something of what destruction must 
have gone on there. But unseen it can not be real- 
ized, the dreariness and desolation of a little region 
that was so late one of Hilo's prettiest suburbs. Not 
a house standing on all that frontage. Waiakea 
bridge had been carried a hundred rods or more 
from its abutments. Even the little church had 
been set back some two hundred feet, tolling its bell 
as it went, while the hinds house that before nestled 
under the shade of the pride of India trees on the 
grassy bank had borne it company, and fallen into 
shapeless ruin at the very side of the almost unin- 
jured church. 

" At this spot the people began to gather about us, 
so sorrowful in their homelessness, that their voices 
and ours choked as we exchanged 'alohas.' Some 
of them led the way to a hut, too small to be a shel- 
ter, but under whose low roof we found a mother sit- 
ting by the corpse of her little one that the waters 
had not spared to her. Close on one side, an old 
man lay groaning with the pain of fractured ribs and 
a broken leg, and on the other side, a heap of some- 
thing, I could hardly tell what at first, lifted a bat- 
tered head to tell us how he had been thrown upon 
the rocks and they had bruised his skull. 

" An Englishman's escape from death seems won- 
derful. We visited him and found him suffering 



Losses of Life and Property. 325 

greatly, but able between groans and gaspings for 
breath to tell us something of his experience. 

" ' I got caught, sir,' he said. ' I should have escaped 
if I hadn't gone back after my money; when I came 
down-stairs the roller had hit the house, and before I 
could get out of the door, the house had fallen upon 
me. I was dreadfully bruised, and you see, sir, as the 
wave took the house inland, it kept surging about 
with me in it, and getting new knocks all the while.' 
4 And what of the money — was it saved ? ' ' Oh, no 
sir, it all went-, six hundred dollars. It was all I had, 
and I am stripped now and I'm past working, sev- 
enty-seven years old.' Kneeling by the poor man, 
Mr. Coan offered an earnest prayer. We left him 
feeling that he was very likely past working much 
longer. 

# " Five lives have been lost ; twenty persons are more 
or less injured. Forty-four dwellings are demolished, 
and one hundred and sixty-three people left home- 
less, their means of procuring sustenance snatched 
from them. Had the wave fallen in the darkness of 
the night, many more must have perished. Daylight 
revealed the almost silent approach of the danger, and 
most had time to flee. I am thankful, if it must hap- 
pen, that this has occurred before our going down to 
Honolulu, so that Mr. Coan is among his people to 
comfort and direct them. Only a few Sabbaths ago 
he preached a sermon on laying up treasure where 



326 Life in Hawaii. 

thieves could not break through and steal. Who 
thought then of this thief f " 

Deep sympathy was awakened in our whole com- 
munity for those who suffered by this calamity. Food, 
clothing, blankets, were given in abundance. The 
report of the disaster spread over the islands, and help 
came from every quarter. His Excellency John 
Dominis, Governor of Oahu, and Her Royal High- 
ness Lydia Dominis, the king's sister, were commis- 
sioned to come to our aid with the donations from 
Honolulu. A judicious distribution of money, cloth- 
ing, lumber, etc., was made among the people, and 
thus encouraged they went cheerfully to work, and in 
a few months most of the losses were repaired ; better 
houses were built, and the sufferers seemed more pros- 
perous than before. 

They now annually commemorate the 10th of May 
by a religious festival and a thanksgiving offering to 
the treasury of the Lord. 



XXIII. 

The Eruption of 1 880-1881 — Hilo Threatened as 
Never Before — A Day of Ptiblic Prayer — Visitors 
to the Lava-Flow — // Approaches within a Mile of 
the Shore — Hope Abandoned — After Nine Months 
the Action Suddenly Abates — The Deliverance — 
The Mechanism of a Great Lava-Flow — An Idola- 
ter Dislodged— Conclusion. 

ON the 5th of November, 1880, our latest erup- 
tion from Mauna Loa broke out at a point 
some 12,000 feet above sea-level, and a few miles 
north of the great terminal crater, Mokua-weo-weo. 
The glare was intense, and was seen at great dis- 
tances. Brilliant jets of lava were thrown high in the 
air, and a pillar of blazing gases mounted thousands 
of feet skyward, spreading out into a canopy of san- 
guinary light which resembled, though upon a larger 
scale, the so-called " pine-tree appendage " formed over 
Vesuvius during its eruptions by the vertical column of 
vapors with its great horizontal cloud. 

Meanwhile a raging river of lava, about three- 
fourths of a mile wide and from fifteen to thirty feet 

deep, rushed down the north-east flank of the great 

(327) 



328 Life in Hawaii. 

dome, and ran some thirty miles to the base of Mau- 
na Kea. This stream was composed mostly of aa or 
scoria. Its terminus was visited and well described 
by our townsman, David Hitchcock, Esq. . This flow 
hardened and ceased ; but a stream of palwelwe or 
field lava was now sent off to the south-east, toward 
Kilauea. The roaring furnace on Mauna Loa re- 
mained in full blast. Down came a third river of 
lava, in several channels, flowing in the direction of 
Hilo. This divided itself in places and reunited, leav- 
ing islands in the forest. This stream crossed the flow 
of 1855-56, followed its south-east margin, and fell 
into our great upland forest in a column from one to 
two miles wide. There was the sound as of a con- 
tinuous cannonading as the lava moved on, rocks ex- 
ploding under the heat, and gases shattering their 
way from confinement. We could hear the explo- 
sions in Hilo ; it was like the noise of battle. Day 
and night the ancient forest was ablaze, and the scene 
was vivid beyond description. By the 25th of March 
the lava was within seven miles of Hilo, and steadily 
advancing. Until this time we had hoped that Hilo 
would not be threatened. But the stream pursued 
its way. By the 1st of June it was within five miles 
of us, and its advance, though slow, was persistent. 
It had now descended nearly fifty miles from its 
source, and the action on Mauna Loa was unabated. 
The outlook was fearful ; a day of public humiliation 



The Eruption of 1 880-81. 329 

and prayer was observed, as during the eruption of 
1855. But still the lava moved onward, heading 
straight for Hilo. One arm of the stream was now 
easily accessible on its northern margin, and two more 
were moving in the deep jungle so far to the south 
that visitors had not the time or patience to penetrate 
to them. It now began to appear that should these 
streams unite no trace of Hilo, or of Hilo harbor, would 
remain. Some of our people were calm ; others were 
horror-stricken. Some packed up their goods and sent 
them to Honolulu or elsewhere, and some abandoned 
their houses. 

Visitors to the stream were now frequent ; and the 
crater on Mauna Loa was reached, on a third attempt, 
by the Rev. Mr. Baker, of Hilo. Were I twenty 
years younger, I should have been on the mountain- 
top also, but my time to climb such rugged heights 
is past. 

The northerly wing of the stream now hardened, 
clogging the channel in which the lava was taking its 
way toward the center of our town. But this check 
gave additional power to the south-east wing, so that 
on the 26th of June, a fierce stream broke out from 
the great lava pond and came rushing down the rocky 
channel of a stream with terrific force and uproar, ex- 
ploding rocks and driving off the waters. Hilo was 
in trouble. We were now in immediate danger. The 
lava, confined in the water-channel of from fifty to a 



3jO Life in Hawaii. 

hundred feet wide, advanced so rapidly that by the 
30th of June it was not more than two and a half 
miles from us, threatening to strike Volcano Street 
about a quarter of a mile from Church Street, on 
which I live, and to fall into our harbor about mid- 
way of the beach. The stream was fearfully active, 
and the danger was now close upon us. From the 
town we could walk up to the living lava in forty 
minutes, and back again in thirty. A hundred peo- 
ple would sometimes visit it in a day. Its roar, on 
coming down the rough and rocky bed of the ravine, 
was like that of our Wailuku River during a freshet, 
but a deeper and grander sound. Explosions and de- 
tonations were frequent ; I counted ten in a minute. 
The glare of it by night was terrific. The daily prog- 
ress of the flow was now from one hundred to five 
hundred feet. 

When I visited the stream on. the 18th of July, I 
saw a scene like this : Troops of boys and girls, young 
men and women, were watching the flow. They 
plunged poles into the viscid lava as it urged itself 
slowly onward ; drawing out small lumps of the ad- 
hering fusion, they moulded it, before it had time to 
cool, into various forms at will. They made cups, 
canes, vases, tubes, and other articles out of this mol- 
ten clay, and these they sold to visitors and strangers 
at from twenty-five cents to a dollar or more for a 
specimen. All went away with fresh spoils from the 



The Lava within Half a Mile of Hilo. 331 

spoiler. An artist was there, who had taken sketches 
in oil ; and the photographer has been upon the spot. 
Our town was now crowded with visitors from all 
parts of the Islands, from our Princess Regent, sister 
of the king, then absent, to the least of his subjects. 
Many spent entire nights upon the banks of the lava 
river. 

Just in front of one of its branches a stone wall 
five feet high was built, in hope of protecting the 
great Waiakea sugar-mill, for which this arm of the 
flow was heading. It was not a broad or heavy arm, 
but it was followed up by a column of fusion which 
no engineering could turn aside. This small advance 
stream came within a yard or two of the wall, paused 
there, and fell asleep in its shadow. At a single point 
the viscid mass, about two feet deep, struck the wall. 
There it rested a little, until, being supplied with fresh 
lava from behind, it heaped itself up against the bar- 
rier, poured over it, and then stiffened and solidified. 
It now hangs there, a sheet of vitreous drapeiy, mark- 
ing the limit of the flow in that direction. Judge 
Severance dug a moat around the Hilo prison, with 
an embankment seven or eight feet high, hoping to 
avert the necessity of a general jail-delivery ; but any 
considerable body of lava of course defies every ob- 
struction. We made no preparations, however, for 
quitting our house. 

The flood came on until all agreed that in two or 



2,1)2 Life in Hawaii. 

three days more it would be pouring into our beauti- 
ful bay. On the ioth of August it was but one mile 
from the sea, and half a mile from Hilo town. On 
that day, nine months and five days from the outburst- 
ing of the great eruption, when hope had perished in 
nearly every heart, the action began to abate. The 
raging flood, the steam, the smoke, the noise of the 
flow were checked ; and in a day or two the great red 
dragon lay stiffened and harmless upon the borders of 
our village. The relief was unspeakable. 

On the 13th of August I visited the flow for the 
fifth time, and felt radiating heat, but saw no more 
liquid lava. But the great pall of the eruption lay 
upon the land for fifty miles. I estimate that the 
lava-stream covered a hundred square miles of mount- 
ain, forest, and farm land, to an average depth of 
twenty-five feet— enough to cover the State of Con- 
necticut to a depth of six inches. No exact measure- 
ments, however, have yet been made. 

I may add a word upon the curious process by which 
this lava flow, like others, has made its way over so 
great a distance from its source. The average slope 
of Mauna Loa is seven degrees ; but this is made up 
of secondary slopes, varying from one to twenty de- 
grees. As the lava first rushes down the steeper incli- 
nations it flows uncovered ; but its surface soon hard- 
ens, forming a firm, thick crust like ice on a river, and 
under this crust the torrent runs highly fluid, and retain- 



How the Lava- Stream Makes Progress. t>32> 

ing nearly all of its heat. In this pyroduct, if I may 
so call it, the lava stream may pour down the mountain- 
side for a year or more, flowing unseen, except where 
openings in the roof of its covered way reveal it. 

When the molten river reaches the more level 
highlands at the base of the mountain, it moves more 
slowly, and sometimes spreads out into lakes of miles 
in diameter. The surface of it soon hardens ; the 
lavas below are sealed within a rigid crust that con- 
fines them on every side. Their onward progress is 
thus checked for hours or days. But as the tremen- 
dous pressure of the stream behind increases, the 
crust is rent, and the liquid lava bursts out and gush- 
es forward or laterally for a hundred, five hundred, 
or a thousand feet or more, as the case may be. The 
surface of this extruded mass cools and stiffens in 
turn, again confining the living lava; then, with the 
pressure from behind, there is a fresh rupture in the 
confining shell. While the lava is held in check 
as I have described, the uninitiated visitor will pro- 
nounce the flow to have ceased. But it is only accu- 
mulating its forces. The lava presses down from the 
source, until suddenly the hardened crust is ruptured 
with a crash, the lava moves forward again, and a 
new joint is added to the covered way. Thus over- 
coming all obstacles, the fusion is kept under cover, 
and moves forward or laterally in its own ducts for 
an indefinite distance. .It may flow at white heat in 



334 Life in Hawaii. 

this way for thirty or forty miles and reach the sea 
at a distance of more than fifty miles from the mount- 
ain source. 

By virtue of this pressure from behind, and of its 
own viscidity, the lava may even be propelled up-hill 
for a certain distance, if the outbursting rush of lava 
be directed upon an upward slope. The lava thus 
grades its own path as it goes seaward. 

Five or six miles inland from our town there nes- 
tled, some twenty years ago, a quiet hamlet. There 
was a school-house in the place ; and the land pro- 
duced taro, potatoes, bananas, and other fruit-trees. 
The scenery was of enchanting beauty. But the pop- 
ulation passed away ; and of late years only one 
house remained on this lovely spot. Its occupant 
was reputed an inveterate heathen. He belonged to 
the ancient class of native physicians or medicine- 
men. When the burning flood struck the forest be- 
hind his house, he is said to have hoisted his flag in 
front of the slowly advancing lava, and to have for- 
bidden it, in the name of the ancient gods of his race, 
to pass that flag. But onward came the flood, regard- 
less of the edict. From time to time the heathen 
doctor was compelled to remove his flag to the rear, 
planting it nearer and nearer to his house ; and at 
last the lava expelled him and his friends, and rolled 
over house, garden, and field, leaving a grisly pile of 
black lava over all. One circumstance in the case 



Conclusion. 335 



was curious. The lava stream surrounded a single 
kalo-plant, growing on an islet of eighteen inches in 
diameter, and on another one twice as broad, a single 
banana plant. They have survived the heat and are 
growing finely, the only green things left in the gar- 
den from which the idolater was driven. 

It is time to bring these imperfect sketches to a 
close. The foregoing pages have been written among 
interruptions and anxieties, but they make some par- 
tial record of a life preserved by its Giver in many 
scenes of danger and crowned with many blessings. 
And among its chief blessings I would recognize God's 
goodness in granting me precious partners in my life- 
work. My second marriage, October 13, 1873, was 
to Miss Lydia Bingham, daughter of the Rev. Hiram 
Bingham. This faithful helpmeet is the strength 
and support of my age. But for her suggestions, 
and her patient labors in copying the manuscript of 
this volume, I should not have undertaken, at my 
time of life, the task of writing it. 

As I lay aside the pen, our anxieties have passed 
away. If again, while I remain, the rocks should 
melt and flow down at the presence of the Lord, 
again we " will look unto the hills whence our help 
cometh." 

Hilo, 1.5th August, 1881. 



INDEX. 



Adams, John 227 

Agriculture, Hawaiian, 123, 

231, 234, 248 

Alexander, William P. .162, 186 

Andrews, Lorrin 232 

Anderson, Rufus 136 

Armstrong, Richard, 162, 

186, 234, 243 

Atuona Valley 204 

Auburn Seminary 13 

Austin, Judge 114 

Bachelot, John Alexius.. 93 

Baker, Mr 329 

Baldwin, Dwight 231 

Baptism in Puna 90 

Bicknell, James, 181, 183, 

192, 198, 202 

Bingham, Hiram. . .95, 242, 244 

Jr 192 

Bishop, Artemas and Sereno 233 

Bond, Elias 224 

Brown, J 164, 168 

Lydia 19 

Byron, Lord George Anson. 25 

Callao, visit to 22 

Canoe, the sacrificial 206 

voyages in Hawaii. ... 37 

Carpenter, Helen 235 

' ' Carysf ort, " visit of . . . . 106-109 
Catholic missionaries, 93, 

95-101, 120 

Catholics in the Marquesas. 163 

reformed 104-106 

Chapin, Alonzo 231 

Cheeseman, Lewis 14 

Chicago, visit to 214 

Children of missionaries... . 114 

Chinese in Hawaii 123 



Church-building 82 

Church organization 90 

Churches, the Hawaiian, 

223, 248 

Clark, E. W 232, 234, 243 

Coan, Fidelia Church.. 9, 18, 61 

Coan, Gaylord ... 1 

Coan, Titus : parentage and 
childhood, 1-5 ; youth, 6- 
9 ; studies for the ministry, 
13 ; prison work, 15 ; trip 
to Patagonia, 16 ; marri- 
age, embarkation for Ha- 
waii, 18 ; arrival in Hono- 
lulu, 22 ; in Hilo, 24 ; foot- 
tours, 31, 42 ; canoe voy- 
aging, 37 ; schools, 63, 
115 ; patients, 63 ; Sunday 
work, 64 ; labored with by 
Mormons, 101 ; organized 
churches under native pas- 
tors, 136 ; first visit to the 
Marquesas Islands, 164 ; 
second visit, 192; visits to 
various parts of the Ha- 
waiian Islands, 223 ; visit 
to the eruption of 1840, 
76 ; of 1852, 281 ; of 1S55- 
56, 290, 297, 302, 304, 306 ; 
of i88o-8r, 330 ; on the 
angle of descent of flow- 
ing lavas, 310 ; visit to the 

United States 213 

Colossal images, Marquesan 177 

Conde, Daniel T 233 

Crook and Harris, Messrs. . 161 
Crossing the torrents 33 

Damon, S. C 241 

Dana, James D., 68 ; quoted. 69 

(337) 



338 



Index. 



Darling, M., in Tahuata. . . . 162 
Darwin, Charles, quoted.... 1S4 
Decrease of population. 121, 258 

Dibble, Sheldon 64, 232 

Diell, S. C 241 

Dimond, Henry 19 

Diseases, epidemic, 81, 198, 

202, 239, 259-261 
Disputant, a Marquesan. . . . 209 

Dole, Daniel 247 

Dominis, John and Lydia... 326 

Douglass, David 225 

DuPont, Samuel Francis... 149 
Dwight, S. G 238 

Earthquakes of 1868. ..86, 313 
" Embuscade," visit of. ... 94 
Epidemic diseases, 81, 198, 

202, 239, 259-261 
Eruption of 1840, 70 ; of 
1843, 270 ; of 1852, 279 ; 
of 1855-56, 289 ; of 1868, 

313 ; of 1880-81 327 

Ewa station 245 

Fatuiva 169 

Finney, Charles 14, 49 

Forbes, A. O 238, 243 

Cochran .42, 229 

Franklin, Lady 146 

Frear, Walter 242 

French in the Marquesas, 

163, 165, 191, 200, 202, 210 

" Galatea," visit of the 85 

General meetings 27, 59 

Golett, Captain 168 

Goodrich, Joseph 26, 64 

Green, Jonathan 64, 234 

Gulick, L. H 243 

0. H 245 

Peter G 229 

Halley, Edouard Michel. 165 

Hana station 232 

Flanahi Valley 181 

Hanatita Valley 182 

Hanavave Valley. . 173-178, 207 
Hawaiian character, 79, 250, 252 

government, old and 

new 30, 124-126 



Hawaiian mission, work of 

closed 249 

pastors 136-13S 

population diminishing 

I2i, 258 

Hakahekau Bay 195 

Haleakala crater 235 

Hall, Edwin 19 

Hanamenu Valley 202 

Heteani Valley 185 

High-priest of the volcano.. 44 
Hilo, village and district dis- 
cribed, 24, 31 ; churches 
of. 42, 55, 135, 139 ; their 
trials, 67, 97 ; buildings, 
82 ; contributions, 85, 118- 
121 ; statistics of, 57 ; 
methods, 87 ; boarding- 
school, 27 ; girls' school, 
61 ; volcanic waves at Hi- . 

lo 51, 316, 320 

Hitchcock, David 328 

E. M 19 

H. R 238 

Hivaoa Island 202, 204 

Honolulu 22, 239 

House of Keawe 226 

Hopuku 204, 205 

Hapa (" Happar") Valley. . 200 

Hoopili... 231 

Hunt, T. D 229 

Hyde, CM 251 

Images, stone, at Puamau. 177 

Jarves, J. J., history by... . 59 

Johnson, Edward 247 

Jones, Ap Catesby 84 

Jose, David 201 

Judd, G. P 125 

Kaivi 170 

Kalakaua, King 134 

Kamehameha 1 127 

II. (Liholiho) 127 

III. (Kauikeaouli) 124, 

127-130 
IV. (Alexander Liholi- 
ho) 130 

V. (Lot) 131 

Kaneohe station 245 



Index. 



339 



Kapohaku Paul 183 

Kauai 246 

Kaukau, A 182 

Kauwealoha, 169, 171, 195, 

202, 205, 210 

Kekai 281 

Kekela, James, 176, 178, 

202, 205, 207-210 

Kekuanaoa 130 

Kilauea compared with Ve- 
suvius, 69 ; action in, 263, 
295 ; eruption of 1840, 
70 ; of 1S68, 313 ; visitors 

to 269 

Killingworth revisited 219 

Kinau 130 

King, Asa 5, 7 

Kinney, Henry 229 

Kuaihelani 174 

Kuakini 227 

Lafon, Thomas 247, 264 

Lahaina 230 

Lahainaluna 231 

Laioha 201 

Land-slips in Kau 315 

Laplace's visit 93 

" La Poursuivante," visit of. 94 
Lava chimneys, 78; streams, 
how supplied, 310 ; angles 
of descent in flowing, 309; 
Hilo threatened by, 328 ; 
mechanism of their pro- 
gress 312, 332 

Lee, William L 131, 143 

Lepers, settlement of on Mo- 

lokai 239, 260 

Lima, visit to. . 22 

Lincoln, President, sends a 

gift to Kekela 179 

Lunalilo, King 132-134 

Lyman, Chester S 144 

■ — - David B., 23-28, 30, 60, 64 
Lyons, Lorenzo 224 

Mallet, Captain 94 

Marquesas Islands de- 
scribed, 159, 169 ; mission 
to, 154, 161-164 ; its de- 
cline, 211 ; fighting of the 
clans, 165, 169, 173 ; feu- 



dal government in 180 ; 
tattooing, 181; physique of 
the Marquesans, 181 ; ta- 
bu system, 187 ; ancient 
stone images in, 177 ; 
scenery of, 183, 197; offer- 
ing of the sacrificial canoe. 206 

Mauna Kea 225 

Loa, average slope of 

332 ; eruption of, 1843, 
270; of 1852, 279 ; of 1855- 

56, 289; of 1880-81 327 

Measles, epidemic of 259 

Meeting of the American 

Board for 1870 217 

Melville, Herman.. 190, 199, 200 

Meto, death of 193 

Mineral smoke 310 

Missionaries' children 114 

Mokuaweoweo crater 295 

Molokai 238 

Leper settlement on. . . 239 

Mormons. . . 101-103, 120, 213 
" Morning Stars," the three, 

155, 158, 196 

Morse, Captain 156 

Mountain climb in the Mar- 
quesas 183 

Munn, Bethuel 238 

Nettleton, Asahel, 1, 7, 

13, 49 

Tamza 1 

Norton, Helen . 244 

Nuuhiva Island 170, 199 

Ogden, Maria 334 

Oleson, W. B 28 

Olinda 236 

Omoa Valley, 163, 169, 174, 204 

Paris, John D., 57, 150, 229, 270 
Parker, Benjamin W., 162, 

186, 192, 208, 245 

Paulet, Lord George 106 

Paumotu Archipelago, The . 194. 

Pearson, Admiral 149 

Pele, high -priest of 9, 44 

Pele's hair 267 

Pogue, John F 229 



34-0 



Index. 



Population, Hawaiian, di- 
minishing 121, 25S 

Porter, Joseph 1S7, 199 

Puamau Valley, 176, 179, 

207-210 
Puna district described, 39 ; 
a trip in, with Prof. Ly- - 

man 144 

Punahou school 244 

Pyrometer, the lost 264 

Reformed Catholics.. .104-106 

Resolution Bay 164 

Revival of 1836-37 43~5i. 59 

Rice, W. H.. 147 

Richards, William 230 

Road across Hawaii, at- 
tempted 311 

Rodgersons, the, in Tahuata 162 
Rogers, Edmund H 19 

Sacraments, how dispensed 90 

Salt Lake City visited 213 

Santiago, visit to 21 

Shipman, W. C 229 

Small-pox in Hawaii 81 

in the Marquesas Isl- 
ands 198, 202 

Smoke, mineral 310 

Smith, J. W 247 

Smith, Lowell 238, 243 

Spaulding, Ephraim 231 

Staley, Bishop 104 

Stallworthy, M., in Tahuata. 162 
Statues, colossal, in the 

Marquesas Islands 177 

Streams in Hilo, crossing 

the 33 

Sugar culture, 123, 231, 234, 248 

Tabu system in Hawaii. . . 
in the Marquesas 187 



Taiohai Bay. 186, 189 

Taipi (" Typee ") Valley, 

190, 199, 201 

Thompson, Frank 135 

Thouars, Du Petit 163 

Thunderstorm on Mauna 

Loa 272 

Thurston, Asa 227 

Tromelin, Admiral de 94 

" Typee" (Taipi) Valley, 190, 

199, 201 

Uahuna Island 201 

Uapou Island 195 

United States Exploring 
Expedition 66 

Valparaiso, visit to.. ...... 21 

Vaitahu Bay 164 

Van Duzee, William S. ... 229 
Visit to the United States... 212 

Visitors to Kilauea 269 

Volcanic chimneys • 78 

Volcanic eruptions, 70, 270, 

279, 289, 313, 327 

Volcanic waves 51, 316, 320 

Voyaging in the Hawaiian 
Islands 23, 111-114 

Waialua station 245 

Wailuku 234 

Waimea, visits to 224 

Waipio Valley 224 

Washington City, visit to.. . 217 
Wetmore, Charles II ... .63, 281 
Whalon, mate, escapes the 

cannibals 177 

Whitney, Samuel 247 

Whittlesey, Eliphalet 233 

Wilcox, Abner 64, 247 

Wild bull confronted, the. . . 287 
Wilkes, Charles 66, 195 






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Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




009 107 698 6 



